War never changes
by Spartan036
Summary: Fallout AU. Shinji Ikari awakens in a world far too alien to him after being locked in cryo-stasis, now guided by the lone wanderer herself, Shinji must endure the unforgiving wasteland of the commonwealth to find out what happened to his family.
1. Its all over

**Co-written with Jam-man265**

* * *

War...war never changes. In the year 1945, my great great grandfather serving in the army wondered if he get to home with his wife and the son he'd never seen. He got his wish when the US ended world war II by dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The world awaited Armageddon. Instead something miraculous happened. We began to use atomic energy not as a weapon but a nearly limitless source of power. People enjoyed luxuries once thought the realm of science fiction, domestic robots, fusion powered car, portable computers. But then, in the 21st century, people awoke from the American dream. Years of consumption led to shortages of every resource. The entire world unravelled. Peace became a distant memory. It is now the year 2077...we stand on the brink of total war and I am afraid for myself, for my wife, for my son and his infant sister because in my time in the army taught me one thing: War, war never changes...

* * *

Jen Hills, Boston.

"More milk sir?" Wilson the Mr. Handy unit asks him.

"A little I guess...maybe not too much?" Shinji replied knowing that Wilson can go overboard sometimes with the cereal. Wilson pours more cereal into the bowel. Shinji is wearing a blue collar shirt with tan slack pants. Shockingly enough, Wilson didn't go overboard with the cereal. After eating the cereal, he sighs in satisfaction knowing he finished his breakfast as Wilson grabs the bowel and puts it on the dish. Yui goes to the bathroom.

"War never changes..." Gendo recited his speech on the mirror with a smile. Behind him is Yui Ikari, todays Shinij's first day in high school as a junior and soon he'll be off to college. Gendo on the other hand is reciting his speech for the town meeting, he's excited to meet Nate again after all these years.

"Shinji, its your turn now!" Yui said in the bathroom causing him to get up and walks towards the bathroom. Shinji looks at the mirror...

"There's very little difference, no point in changing hairstyle..." Shinji observed and walks outside of the bathroom.

"So now you're in junior year son, better start thinking about the future." Gendo smiled while reading his newspaper and taking a sip of his coffee then looks at the cereal nearby on the table.

"Sugar-Bombs," Gendo muttered picking the box off the table, "'100% ounces of daily sugar'," Picking up the box Gendo then looked at the ingredients… and nearly choked on the toast he was eating.

"Are you even aware of what you're doing to your body when you intake just a spoonful of that?"

"I'm taking up your job, remember? Also don't worry, long as I have at least one bowl a day I'll be alright." Shinji replied.

"Russell wouldn't know a healthy condition if it tied itself to a flagpole and jammed it up his-"

"Now, now Gendi~,there's no need to expand Shinji's vocabulary to colorful territory before he has yet to experience the first steps of parenthood. And being a scientist isn't always all about chemicals and calculations you know." Yui commented. The doorbell rings causing Gendo to sigh.

"What do you mean-"

"And Shinji, It would be wise to take better care of yourself, we all know how handicapped individuals are looked down upon in society today." Yui interrupted him.

"Its him again, I thought we did the poll." Shinji opens the door to reveal a vault-tec representative that visited earlier. He is wearing a tan coat and tie alongside a hat.

"Vault-tec here!" Came the cheerful and rather obnoxious tone of the, at this point, irritatingly familiar 'Vault-Tech-Employee' "Insuring that your future is secure-"

"I remember you," Shinji interrupted "I thought we already did all the paperwork for this."

"Er, yes, as a matter of fact we have," The Vault Tech Employee awkwardly cleared his throat "It's just that there was a little, how should I put this…. 'paper snafu' back at HQ. Nothing too serious! We just need to re-evaluate you skill set."

He handed Shinji his clipboard.

"Just insert the amount that you feel best resembles who you are."

SPECIAL POINTS: 21  
S: 3  
P: 6  
E: 3  
C: 1  
I: 10  
A: 2  
L: 5  
CLASS: SCIENTIST

He gives the sheet back to the man.

"Thank you for your patience!" The man leaves as Shinji shuts the door. Shinji hears crying thus getting Gendo and Yui's attention, Wilson turns to the group and flies off then returns to them.

"Well, I believe Ms. Rei needs some familial love!" Wilson stated. Prior to marrying Gendo, Yui was married to an old war buddy of Gendo's but PTSD got the best to him and soon escalated into domestic violence which led to Gendo injuring him with his standard issued handgun. In the middle of it, Shinji was born and then Rei with Gendo. Yui heads into Rei's room right before coming out.

"Look Rei! Everyone wants to see you!" Yui gushed as Rei begins to calm down with Shinji walking towards her. Shinji tickles her a little causing Rei to laugh.

"You'll be a great brother, Shinji." Yui smiled.

"Now its off to school-"

"Mum...sir?" They all turn around to see the news on TV. The reporter's eyes are widened and looks like he's scared.

"We are getting reports of...dozens of nuclear strikes. Blinding flashes...we'll try to stay on air as we can...oh god..." The TV shuts as the family looks at each other with Gendo loading his handgun.

"We have to get to the vault, now!" Gendo yelled. Gendo and leads the family as he opens the door of the house to reveal the neighborhood as civilians are fleeing and others are looting the streets with Gendo aiming his gun at one of them which is a man beating up Yui's teacher, Fuyutsuki and picks him up. They make it up into the hills with a guard post nearby as Fuyutsuki is allowed to enter alongside one of there neighbors, Aoba, Ritsuko, Maya, and Hyuga.

"Name?" The US army officer asks.

"We're on the list." Yui explained.

"Hm...husband and wife, infant daughter and teenage son. You're good." The officers let the family inside the gate as a vault-tec security officers lets them inside the vault.

"Right this way!" The officer said as they reach the platform with everyone panicking.

"Its going to be fine, we love you Shinji...Rei too." Yui assured as she holds Rei tightly. A giant explosion is heard as the people who are going down with the Ikari's turn to it but Gendo shields there view.

"Lower the platform!" A soldier ordered as the platform lowers down.

* * *

The platform goes down to reveal an entrance way towards the bottom. Shinji rubs his arm a little since he could still feel the heat of the explosion while Yui comforts Rei with Gendo sighing after the explosion. Its been a long time since he saw an explosion like that ever since Anchorage...he wonders if Nate survived. Sure Nate was a tough son of a bitch but an explosion at this magnitude...he just hopes he got out or at least out of the country or a nearby vault in the nick of time before the Chinese blew them up.

The platform lands in front of the vault-tec personnel who are all ready. Security teams armed with batons and assault rifles, others with pistols. Intimidating yes but a sign of security nonetheless. Lazer rifles are present too. Nate told Shinji once that vaults are lightly armed but these guys are different...more militaristic. Even complete with power armor.

"Right this way sir." The soldier advised as Gendo nodded with Ritsuko taking a break while using her hand to lean against the wall. Shinji remembers Ritsuko...she was one of the medics serving in Anchorage. In fact, most of the people accompanying them served in Anchorage then later became scientists of high esteem and position.

"Hello and welcome to vault 113, please step this way." A personnel said as the group makes it on top of the stairs. Maya is first to take a jumpsuit which is blue and yellow while Gendo is second.

"Sir, weaponry isn't allowed in the vault. Please discard your weapon." She advised.

"Sorry, second amendment and its war time. I might need this." The staff member looks at the rules and vault dwellers are allowed to have weaponry with them.

"I apologize, please take this vault suit." The staff member offers him a vault suit as he puts it on. Yui is second and Shinji is third. They are then separated by personnel to different changing rooms. Shinji puts on his vault suit and looks at it...blue and yellow also a bit skin tight too. They get out of the changing room as Gendo checks out Yui who blushes.

"Dad...what's going on? Is this our new home?" Shinji asks Gendo who sighs.

"Yes Shinji, our new home." Gendo replied as he holsters his pistol behind his back. A staff member walks in on them.

"Right this way please." The staff member escorts them as the group follows him. Ritsuko, Maya, Fuytusuki are seen talking with the staff in worry.

"Welcome to vault 113, like what your father said-this is your new home. And these are the decontamination pods." They enter a room to reveal pods inside them, all match the capacity of the people who are in the vault.

"Please step inside." The staff member ordered. Rei begins to cy as Yui tries to cheer her up.

"Its okay Rei, dad and Shinji will be over there. We'll be safe." Shinji ticks Rei in the cheek causing her to laugh a little right before Yui gets on the pod with Gendo going to the one near her. Shinji enters his now.

"Cryo stasis enabled." It begins to turn cold now...Shinji's vision fades.

* * *

Everything around Shinji is white but soon fades. The PA is saying that the cryo stasis has been interrupted...they've been lied to. This wasn't a decontamination pod, this was forced sleep! Shinji looks outside of the window of the pod to see the pods of his parents being opened. Walking towards them is an old man, a middle aged man with a beard and rolled up sleeve shirt and what appears to be armor on his arm. Beside him is an African American man wearing dark shades and weird attire...almost sci-fi like.

"Did we...did we make it?" Yui asks while gasping for air alongside Gendo who coughs.

"Its alright, everything's going to be fine." The old man stated to Yui. Another figure appears, hazmat suited and appears to be female, she reaching out to Rei causing Shinji to panic.

"Come here..." Yui struggles to get the woman off of Rei who is crying.

"No, wait. No, I've got her!" She yelled back at Yui. The black man with the shades aims an unusual weapon at Yui...it resembles a laser pistol.

"Let the girl go. I'm only gonna tell you once!" The bearded man threated...only for Gendo to give up his visage and catch him off guard by punching the old man in the back of the head then shooting the black man in the eye to reveal his robotic features. The bearded man pulls out his magnum and tries to shoot Gendo but Gendo shoots him in the stomach though he punches him off of him.

The wounded men aim there weapons at Gendo who aims his pistol at them. More hazmat suited people arrive and escort Yui and Rei with Yui crying to Gendo and Shinji. Gendo moves to the left and out of Shinji's view.

"Look man, we're not here to fight just stand down..." The wounded man said as the old man takes center and glares at him...a barrage of bullets flies at them causing the three of them to duck. A door is heard opening and a barrage of bullets come flying in causing them to take cover and fire back.

"Shit, no one told me that the brotherhood of steel is here!" The bearded man yelled and returned fire.

"At least we have a spare." The African-American said as he looked at Shinji with his damaged face.

"Whatever you say so X6." Shinji's vision turns white as everything fades from view.

* * *

Do I like hurting other people...?  
You never said it, but I knew it was what you were thinking.  
I guess it was always hard for you to imagine the Shy and Quiet Asuka you grew up with being able to take a life so easily.  
I don't blame you... even I have a hard time recognizing myself sometimes.  
Maybe I was always like this... maybe I wasn't... what I know now is that I can never go back to the way it use to be.  
...But even still... you accepted this 'new me'... and you would always be back *there* waiting for me with open arms.  
I can't even think of how many times I could've been broken if it wasn't for your warmth.  
But... I can't stay... not anymore... there's something I have to do...  
And after I complete it... I know I'll no longer be deserving of your warmth...  
I'm sorry but this is the way it must be.  
Because war... war never changes...  
-Letter to Amata from the Lone Wanderer.

* * *

Capitol wasteland

A redhead girl looks at her pip-boy as her hair shadows her eyes and sitting on a rock, nearby is a dead deathclaw. She's wearing a vault suit but different model there's a number on the back...101. She's wearing a Reily's ranger chest piece complete with combat leggings On her pip-boy is a radio station and chooses galaxy news network. The song she chooses is Wanderer by Dion. She places the note on the mailbox in front of vault 101 right before leaving.

* * *

2 weeks later.

The music is still playing as the girl walks in a village and looks at the sights right before drinking some nuka-cola and shooting a rad-roach while not looking and walking ahead.

* * *

3 weeks later.

She looks at the sign of sanctuary hills and spots Preston Garvey walking towards her as she walks towards him in response.

* * *

4 weeks later.

The redhead stops at Jen Hills or what's left of it right before deciding to make it her home now. Away from everyone...to keep everyone safe. Nearby is Wilson watering the plants as she walks towards him.

"Oh, good to see another human around! A pleasure to meet you...and you are?"

* * *

Shinji's eyes turn back to normal vision as he gasps for air and the pod opens the door. The pod door slowly opens to reveal a redhead girl with long hair, the same one wearing the vault 101 suit. She pulls out a stick and starts poking Shinji to revitalize his nerves but they've already been alive. The pokes are starting to hurt now a little. She pokes him again but extends the stick which starts to hurt a lot more now.

"Stop that!" Shinji yelled at her. She pauses for a moment...and pokes him again in the crotch then in the eye. Shinji falls on the ground while rubbing the frost from his arms. He looks around for anything, he finds his father's handgun on the ground but no body since it sounded like he ran off with those brotherhood of steel people, probably military. The pods around him are empty as he gets up and looks at the redhead. The eyes of someone who has seen things that no one can explain...maybe she fought aliens for all he knew.

"Who...who are you?" He asks her as she smacks him in the back of the head.

"Its about time you noticed me, you look like you were high on some chems! But I don't blame you since you're confused as ever, idiot." She insulted him as Shinji is a little hurt at the moment.

"Sorry...why are you here...?" Shinji asks again. The redhead sighs and tilts her head and places her hand on her hips.

"You're mister Handy, Wilson, sent me here to see the young master if he's still alive. I was expecting you to be dead since this is a vault. Man, pre-war people were idiots..." The girl growled.

"There's people dead in the vaults? Wait...maybe those vaults have frozen people in them-" She gives a humorous smack to Shinji.

"Idiot! Like the rest of the pre-war people! Vaults were experiments conducted by vault-tec, you must've been one of the guinea pigs!" Shinji rubs his head a little in pain knowing that an end of a hand like that hurts.

"I should've known..." Shinji muttered.

"Damn right you should've!" The girl replied.

"And to answer you're first question when you got out of the fridge: Asuka Langley Soryu of vault 101." Asuka introduced herself. Shinji is shocked about this, she's from a vault but vaults were supposed to experiment on people but she got out fine.

"Weren't vaults supposed to be used to experiment on people? That kind of kills the purpose on, no offense, you being alive." Shinji questioned.

"My vault was supposed to be isolated from the outside world and I got out after the psycho overseer sent a security team at me after my dad left. Idiot left me and I was forced to fight my way out of the vault with the help of my friend, Amata. Now enough about me, time to get a gun." Asuka activates her pip boy and scrolls on the menu and picks the 10mm pistol then hands it to Shinji who looks at the gun.

"Do I really have to use this?" Shinji asks.

"You do, its a whole new world out there and I don't want you dead. Now lets go." The two walk away from the pod room and pass by dead radroaches in the vault and a few skeletons...most of which are the security team.

"What...what happened?"

"Don't know much but from I read on the overseer's terminal, a rebellion started and the security team got into a chaotic gunfight right before leaving the vault. This vault's purpose was supposed to put together scientific and militaristic minds together so they can build an entirely new society. But from what I saw via security camera's and holo-tapes, someone broke in with the brotherhood of steel on there trail ten years ago." Asuka explained.

"Those people I saw...who were they?"

"I don't know, enclave or some other faction I don't know of in the commonwealth. I'm from DC after all so I don't know much about the place." She replied.

"What's the brotherhood of steel? Are they military?" Shinji is rather hopeful that they could be military, which means help.

"Sort of..." Asuka picks up a box of 5.56mm rounds.

"They're a quasi-religious technological organization with its roots stemming from the US army. There objective is to gather technology to make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands and use it to rebuild the old world but for now, they must keep the tech safe. I worked with them to bring down the enclave you know, I'll never forger liberty prime...may he rest in peace." Asuka sighed.

"The robot that was supposed to be used in Anchorage? Must've been strong." Shinji commented.

"It chucked a nuke while spouting anti-communist comments...that was the most American thing I have ever seen." Asuka awed at the memory and continues to walk towards the control panel and activates the large door to open as it reveals the platform. They get on the platform.

"I forgot to tell you: Welcome to the wasteland." The platform ascends as a ray of light blinds Shinji briefly but his vision fades to reveal the ruined Jen Hills to his shock. Walking towards them is man. Obviously ruined clothing and moderately long gray hair also green long sleeve shirt. Asuka knows who he is, his name is Bullet.

"Hey there, that's a cute guy you have. How many caps you have for him?" Bullet asks as Asuka squints at him.

"Didn't I hear that Nora lit you up like a Christmas tree?"

"Rumors girlie now how much for the kid? I have an offer you can't refuse." Men come from behind Bullet as they pull out there pipe rifles. Asuka knows that Bullet is a slaver and he heard what happened...

"Sure, Shinji can you please go to that guard post and cover your ears while looking at a wall." Asuka ordered as Shinji does the same and goes to the old guard post of the vault...he hears muffled gunshots and explosions and laser shots. He turns around to see Bullet and his men dead on the ground riddled with burn marks and gunshot wounds. Bullet coughs up blood.

"Please...help..." Bullet pleaded only for Asuka to pin him on the ground and unload a round into his head with her Xuanlong Chinese assault rifle.

"Now, time to turn you over to Wilson~" Asuka sang and looted some pistol ammo from his dead body. Shinji resists trying to throw up and walks with Asuka, a stranger in a strange land.

* * *

Good neighbor.

A redheaded teenager about the same age as Asuka's is sitting in the bar of the third rail. He is wearing a vault suit on the back that reads 21 and has leather armor on it and a les fusil terribles shotgun holstered on his back. He is looking at a picture...new Vegas. The courier himself is in the commonwealth. For a long time actually. Magnolia stops singing and goes to the bar as he takes a sip from his beer.

"Is there something wrong with him? Bars close to closing right now. I wouldn't be surprised." Magnolia asks Whitechapel Charlie who is the Mister Handy of the bar while whispering.

"Him? Hey, don't judge'em, he's the courier from new Vegas. He deserves a drink after what happened." Charlie replied.

"I heard the place was burnt down by the institute, no survivors from what I've heard." The courier gets up and grabs a beer from the table then drunkly sits on a chair with a table in front of it. Walking inside the bar is synth detective Nick Valentine who sits in front of him.

"You know Taisuke, Nora is trying to get you some help, its been five years and I know you came here to the commonwealth to take revenge on the institute and spent your entire life on that revenge. Its time to let go." Nick said as he smoked.

"So what? Is this an intervention?" Taisuke replied.

"I'm not good at helping people but I may have found someone in the commonwealth to help you. Someone close." Nick countered.

"I don't need help Nick, I can go through this-" Nick angrily raises himself up in front of Taisuke.

"How many times have I heard this? How many times have I saw you "try" to let go? You're just drowning yourself in misery. Anyway, the person in the commonwealth is your older sister aka the lone wanderer."

"So she finally made it here? I guess DC wasn't good enough."

"More like she wanted to find you, the same thing happened to her-experimented on and her companions killed. Just...talk it out you two, she's been trying to reach you and help you." Nick negotiated as Taisuke got up and picked up the beer bottle.

"Fine, I'll find her."

* * *

Vault 114.

Darla throws a swing at synth detective Kaworu Nagisa's face, his face is plastic showing an opening on the side revealing his mechanical parts while his glowing yellow eyes show too. He is wearing a tan coat with white long sleeve shirt. Why Kaworu is here you ask? He was offered a case of a missing woman in vault 114, old Skinny Malone's place but it turns out that it was a trap to make Kaworu an example for Nick Valentine. He knew Nick when he first moved here to the commonwealth from the capitol wasteland.

"Now, tell me where is that rat bastard Nora Morgan! I'm gonna show her a piece of my mind after she made Skinny leave me!" Darla yelled at Kaworu who laughs a little.

"You know, the minutemen are the people you want to tick off the least. Unless you want to be vaporized by laser muskets." Kaworu taunted and pulled out a lighter so he can smoke. Darla groans in rage.

"Take him to the room!" Darla ordered as her men dragged Kaworu.

* * *

Cambridge police station.

Paladin Touji Suzuhara seals the door shut as knight Mayumi Yamagishi and scribe Amano rush in. Touji is wearing T60 power armor and armed with a laser rifle as he opens fire at the ghouls trying to break in. He should've known, its been a month since the brotherhood left the commonwealth and now there's more ferals than ever. Minutemen can't get here in time since he fired a flare.

"Shit, what do we do!?" Mayumi yelled as she opened fire with her pistol in hand. Touji gets on the police radio and activates it.

"This is Touji Suzuhara of the brotherhood of steel! Requesting assistance of local enforcement!"

* * *

Diamond city.

"First off, a reporter must know that a person is lying and you need to see the signs." Piper said as she taught rookie reporter Hikari Horaki who is writing on her notes. Hikari is the first employee of the publick occurrences and Piper's correspondent also. Piper looks at Hikari who looks distracted.

"I can tell you're a little...distracted. Are you thinking of that brotherhood of steel war monger that passed by?" She asks causing Hikari to be flustered.

"What? No! I'm not...I liked his power armor, that's all. Plus you're the one to talk to since you married a paladin-"

"And general of the minutemen and I'm god dammed proud of marrying Nora."


	2. Brave new world

Shinji walks down the hill from the place the vault was located in with Asuka. He can still feel the radiation but its a bit cold, he can't tell what the month is due to the destroyed trees and everything. Asuka looks left and right which makes it feel weird but she must be scouting for enemies in the area. The two make it down to reveal the destroyed neighborhood of Jen Hills. Shinji tries his best not to breakdown at the destruction.

"As I live and breathe! Its really you!" Shinji turns around to see his unit, Wilson much to Shinji's relief. Shinji thought he lost Wilson during when the bombs fell on Boston though its unsurprising to see Wilson alive.

"Wilson? You're alive..." He smiled knowing that Wilson is still alive. If Wilson had a face, he'd be joyed. All around Jen Hills is either wreckage, skeletons and signs of conflict in the area. As if an attack had just happened.

"Wilson...what happened?"

"Oh, you forgot sir? The bombs happened that's what. Well, besides our geraniums still being the envy of Jen Hills, I'm afraid things have been dreadfully dull here." Wilson replied.

"Things will be so much more exciting with you, Rei, sir and the mum back! Where are they anyway?" Shinji falls silent. How will he break this to Wilson of all people? Well, robots...Wilson has been a valuable part of the family, he can't just say that a bunch of weirdos came in and tried to kidnap them (at least attempted to since Gendo got away)

"I...I don't know. People came into the vault and kidnapped mom and Rei." Shinji explained much to Wilson's shock.

"Oh dear...! What about sir?"

"Dad...he put up a fight and then bullets, possibly the military, came flying in. I think he got away in time though." The boy replied. Wilson gives a sigh of relief as Asuka is reminded of her quest to find her dad too. She walks off to find something as Wilson turns to her then back to Shinji.

"Well, I hope you and the lone wanderer can find the sir! Speaking of people...I remember hearing gunshots from the vault and feared the worst so I hid. I deeply regret what happened and I should've done something to save them." Wilson regretted.

"Hey, pre-war relic!" Asuka called as Shinji leans over Codsworth. She takes a pip-boy off of a skeleton with a bullet exit wound on the back of its head and a gun on its hand. Shinji walks over to Asuka as she loads her extra handgun from her holster.

"Here take these." Asuka hands the pip-boy over to Shinji who places it on his arm and loads the handgun.

"Since I read you're files and saw you're birthday, I decided to give you you're very own pip-boy and gun. Happy birthday." Asuka complemented before pulling out her Xuan Long Chinese assault rifle.

"Now, I spotted a couple of radroaches in the area. Time for some target practice." The two head to the house nearby as Asuka stacks up against the wall to take cover from them. Shinji aims his gun at the radroaches.

"Alright, if you want to get a critical on these things. Activate you're pip-boys vault-tec assisted targeting system aka VATS. It'll lock onto parts of the enemy's body and give you good a spot to where that bullet will find a comfortable place to rest in." Shinji activates the VATS and show the parts where to hit the radroach.

"Now, those numbers there represent the chances to hit the target. So far you have a lot of opportunities to hit it." Shinji fires his handgun and hits the radroach on its back thus killing the mutated cockroach.

"Nice, you're bug killing skills are remarkable." Asuka complemented.

"Since I'm you're guide to the wasteland, you should stick by me at all costs. You got that?"

"S-Sure..."

"Oh do please be careful out there sir!" Wilson advised.

"I'll keep him safe, as long as he doesn't get in my way or in the line of fire really." The two go down the path which is heading to the town nearby. A haunting atmospehere weighs heavy on Shinji as there's no signs of life is present but Asuka...it really is the end of the world. They make it to the town.

"Jeez...this place has been through a lot..." Asuka muttered as she picks up a shotgun from the ground and checks the ammo on it to see there's nothing. She looks at the magazine closely...the gun powder is fresh.

"Um...what are you doing?" Shinji asks as Asuka readies her weapon.

"Stay behind me, there's a gunfight nearby." Asuka advised as Shinji nodded and readies his pistol. First pops and now crackles are heard which proves Asuka's assumption about what's going on. They head to the center to see town hall being shot at by raiders and some slavers too.

"Kill'em all!" A raider yelled. Asuka pulls out a fragmentation grenade and throws it over the car much to the raider's surprise and his late reaction time as it explodes near the destroy car he's next to. Due to the fact its nuclear powered, the car explodes into a tiny mushroom cloud as it kills everything around him including his allies. A surviving raider gets up heavily burned and pulls out his pipe pistol at Asuka with Shinji wearily pulling out his handgun and shooting him in the head with it thus killing him.

Shinji begins to feel sick now after killing a man...another human to be exact. The sense begins to fill his mind of regret and disgust, what if this man had a family? Or wasn't much to a bad guy? What if those people in there are no better? Shinji pukes on the ground much to Asuka's annoyance.

"You there! Vault dwellers! Grab a laser musket!" A raven haired woman ordered, her outfit looks colonial in terms of fashion style.

"Don't worry, we came in armed!" Asuka replied as she signals Shinji to come with her into town hall. She busts through the door of town hall and uses her VATS to shoot a raider in the head and his friend with her assault rifle thus killing the two. Another raider gets out of cover but Shinji guns him down by shooting him in the chest.

"They're upstairs!" Asuka notified and reloads her weapon.

"Take point, I got you covered!" Shinji walks ahead and heads to an entrance that leads to a staircase nearby. He heads upstairs to reveal a pack of raiders trying to break prompting Shinji to shoot at them with his pistol but the shots don't do anything. He grabs a rifle nearby to even the odds and fires from cover, a shot hits a raider in the stomach which injures him while the other one is finished off by Asuka. Shinji heads out of cover and opens the door to reveal the raven haired woman and a group of people inside it. Most armed with pipe pistol and machine guns but it looks like they're low on ammo.

"I have to admit, you're timing is impeccable. Misato Katsuragi, major of the minutemen." Misato introduced herself.

"Minutemen?" Shinji asks.

"Yeah, we're a militia consisting of people who want to do the right thing. Protecting people at a minutes notice. So far, we're on a roll." Misato replied.

"I heard about you, blew up the institute. Wish I was there to see it burn." Asuka smiled.

"Most satisfying thing next to killing a deathclaw with a fork. Now to business, a month ago, there were twenty of us but some raider stole a flare and now yesterday there eight. Now, we're five. Its just me-the Aida's-that's Maria Vinnces on the couch. And this here's Aoba." Misato introduced.

"We we're almost as good as dead and you proved those raiders and slavers wrong. But they'll come back for more." Aoba added before going back to repairing the computer.

"Any ideas?" Asuka asks.

"Well, there is one." Misato guessed knowing that it looks like Asuka can do a better job. But that vault suit...it looks familiar. Also the number too, 101. Shinji on the other hand to her seems out of place really.

"There's a crashed vertibird on the roof, next to it is a minigun and power armor. I think the redhead can use it better than the guy, no offense. To power it-"

"I have a fusion core. Like at least...twenty five of them." Asuka explained causing Misato to whistle.

"You sure your a vault dweller not a brotherhood of steel member? You seem pretty well armed, especially with that Chinese assault rifle. I can tell your not from around here." She major observed.

"From DC really, came here to...do something." Asuka explained causing Misato's eyes to widen to realize who she is and what's done.

"Oh hell...of all people, the lone wanderer! I thought you died years ago!...You are the lone wanderer, right?" Misato asks causing Asuka to roll her eyes.

"I never used that title but its true." Asuka replied and sighed. She should've stopped Moira from writing that book about her.

"Hey, is it true you got abducted by aliens? If so can have a-"

"No, no alien blaster for you." Asuka growled as Aoba pouts. She never talks about mothership Zeta or she'll just come off as a nutcase. She'll talk about operation Anchorage and point lookout but not that...incident. To her it was just a bad dream brought about by the stress of being exiled from her vault and loosing her father at the same time. Never existed.

"Alright, when you're ready, head to roofs and get inside the power armor." Asuka nods and tries to walk away but stops at Shinji as she gives him another weapon but pulls away.

"Its single shot so remember to reload every time." She advised and gives him the weapon: The Gauss rifle. Asuka heads to the roof and installs the fusion core right before activating the power armor. Its a T-60 power armor with T-45 parts on it. She rips off the minigun off of the vertibird. Shinji gets on the balcony and aims the Gauss rifle at the incoming raiders heading towards them. The first raider is shot in the chest by Misato which causes his chest blow up leaving only a set of legs and his body parts flying around while another one is disintegrated into ashes by Misato again since she's using her laser musket.

"Now go, let the legend come back to life!" Aoba yelled.

A raider on the roof fires his pistol at Asuka who is in her power armor and turns him into nothing but a pile of meat with her minigun. Another raider fires at Shinji but he quickly dispatches him with the gauss rifle, the shot is powerful enough to send him flying in the air and against the wall. Shinji reloads the weapon but drops the ammo since he keeps shaking.

"Oh no!" Shinji tries to pick up the ammo but a raider shoots at him prompting Shinji to pull out his pistol and fires it at the raider and getting a headshot off of him. Asuka jumps off of the roof and fires her minigun at the raiders which kills the foolish one up front who tried to melee her. More raiders fire at Asuka but Shinji spots a red explosive barrel nearby which he shoots thus clearing the way for Asuka as she continues shooting at the raiders and slavers.

"Oh shit, fallback!" A raider yelled knowing that his group is his entire gang as a final assault. He is shot in the back by Asuka as his friend gets up from cover only for Asuka to grab him by the throat and throw him at his comrade right before pulling out her fatman mini-nuke launcher then firing at what remains of the raider gang.

"You're even more badass in person!" Misato complemented. Shinji fire his gauss rifle even more and hit most raider's either in the chest or the leg. Grumbling is heard now...out of the sewers is a deathclaw coming out.

"Oh hell no!" The major yelled and continue firing her musket rifle at the beast which damages it slightly. Asuka switches to her shishkebab sword, a katana with a motorcycle engine on it which causes it to give off fire from its blade. The deathclaw roars at Asuka but she swings the sword at its face which slightly blinds it in the process but roars in rage and tries to swing at her but Asuka stabs its hand right before impaling the creature but the wound isn't deep enough as it continues roaring. Asuka removes the blade from its chest and uses her VATS on the creature. She throws a swing at its head and then the torso and the arm. Shinji aims his gauss rifle at the head and shoots the beast thus critically injuring the thing as Asuka gets up with her weapon in hand and grabs it head right before stabbing the sword into the creature's forehead thus killing it.

"We're clear." Asuka notified. She gets back inside town hall with Shinji going downstairs last so he can let Misato and her group come first.

"That was some fight right there wanderer." Misato complemented.

"I learn from the best." The major turns to Shinji.

"And you, you look confused as ever. Like a boy out of time." She observed.

"I...I was cryogenically frozen for about two hundred years and she found me." Shinji explained.

"Oh boy, I think I know someone who lived pre-war and not a ghoul. Not like I have anything against ghouls. Our general, Nora Morgan." Misato informed.

"...She was a family friend before the bombs dropped. I can't believe it...look, I joined up with Asuka to find out what happened to my mom, dad and infant sister." Shinji replied.

"What happened?"

"In the middle of the years, someone woke me up alongside many others. I saw a middle aged man, a black man and a bearded man too. They took my mom and my infant sister but my dad put up a fight and was saved by unknown people called the brotherhood of steel." Shinji explained.

"Wait...the kidnappers, describe them." Misato ordered.

"The first obviously was black and wore weird shades and a black uniform also armed with a laser pistol, when my dad shot him in the face, underneath his face was a mechanical one. The second wore a brown shirt with a white one underneath it and arm armor also armed with a revolver. The last had a brown beard and hair also looked properly trimmed and has a lab coat too." Shinji described causing Misato to squint.

"Huh...I knew it! The first one you were describing was a synth courser, did any of the kidnappers give a name?"

"X6 was his name."

"The war criminal, X6-88. A synth courser that hunts down any synth ran away from the institute."

"What's the institute?"

"The institute formerly CIT was an organization bent on replacing humanity and other life forms with synthetic doubles dubbed synths. They kept the commonwealth divided for centuries until the general took them out. The other man you described was Kellogg, he was a mercenary who kidnapped Nora's son but was killed by her. Finally the last is the leader named Father. Kellogg and Father died a month ago in fact but X6 remains. It appears the institute kidnapped your mom and sister."

"Where did they take them?"

"Possibly when you were awoken, it was twenty years ago now considering the time skip, the institute was blown to bits by Nora. It was the old CIT building...there are two things that might have happened to them: The institute kills people and uses there DNA to make synths or they've herded like cattle and placed somewhere. I just hope for the best." Misato hoped as Aoba gets the radio working to contact more minutemen in the area.

"...Thank you for telling me." Shinji thanked and is on the verge of tears and borderline screaming. Maria notices him a little.

"Huh...I saw you in a vision once. Yes, I saw a scared little girl being left by her mother and behind the girl were soldiers or some sort...coursers. All of them wearing power armor. Then you appeared" Maria explained.

"Oh lay off the chems Maria!" A settler yelled.

"The site never lies, period. Look Shinji, the commonwealth needs you and Asuka on this in my vision and whatever you find, you might not like it. If you want help, go to Kaworu Nagisa of diamond city or Nick Valentine."

"Diamond city? My little brother lives there."

"Oh the courier? That drunkard? I don't see any inch of heroism in him." Aoba insulted only for Asuka to shoot her laser rifle at him.

"Guess we'll head to diamond city then and find Nick or Kaworu..." Asuka mumbled.

"Is there any potential settlements?" Misato asks.

"Jen Hills, I suppose." The two head off to a long road ahead as they get out of town hall.

"Don't worry, we'll find them...hey, take this." Asuka gives Shinji some sweet roll.

"This saved my life numerous times." The thoughts of Rei and Yui dead flood through Shinji's head...but shakes it off as Asuka leads the way.

"You have a lot of things to learn."

* * *

Institute HQ.

X6-88 is busy overseeing the synth's training for the new army. The new leader...he likes her. The ways of a true pioneer for the hope of humanity. All around him are synths armoring up for the next operation. His communicator goes off causing him to turn it on to the screen to see no one.

"Institute here. Why isn't you're video feed working?" X6 asks the caller.

"Its broken."

"Who the hell is this?"

"This is caau, rit, sss, pu-,-ear me. Over."

"Try the gain."

"There...that should do it. Any better?"

"Well, your unit still doesn't appear to be operational, pal. Who is this?"

"Well, that's not unusual, is it? Nothing works right anymore."

"Ain't it the truth. Just don't let anyone who's got the president's ear hear that. You'll be making cattle-runs to New Reno'til the end of time, pal."

"The president?"

"Yeah, you know how unhappy she gets when people complain. She takes it personal, like it's a loyalty thing. Maybe that just goes with being president of the institute. Or the new one."

"The president of the institute?"

"The president of the united-fucking-states of America and the institute. Who'd you think I was talkig about? Who the fu-who is-what-I should kick your fucking ass, who is this?"

"You're not important enough for that information."

"Hm? A wise guy, huh? Look, I'm tracing you right now, pal. We'll see how smart you feel with internal security all over your fucking ass. Dickhead."

"Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you."

"Ah, a few more moments and I'll have your sorry ass in a sling. Hey, wait a minute. This can't be right...I've got you somewhere midair."

"That's right...sucker. Right where you can't get me."

"I've got you, at new Vegas react, number five. Ah, well, why don't you just sit tight and I'll order up a little celebration for you. Including fireworks."

"Oh goodie. I just love fireworks. Send me a lot."

"Yeah well, whoever you are, I just dispatched a vert-assault team to your location. Have a nice day."

"And what are they going to do?"

"Usually they just fo in shooting. They someone else sift through the ashes to figure out what was going on."

"Oh, now you've got me all scared. I need to change my undies."

"Goodbye. Next news on you will be when I read the after action report."

"Those vertibirds have shot down by my jets."

"...Wait." The caller goes offline.

* * *

?

A girl wearing a brown trench coat jacket with shades looks at the destroyed institute vertibirds as one of the occupants get out but legs gone and kneels down aiming her 10mm pistol at the synth crawling towards her. The girl has brown hair and has a long pony tail. She knows the difference but she hates the institute synths who are loyal to there masters. The girl puts her phone away since she's the one who made that call.

"I am obligated to terminate you at all costs." The robot said while crawling towards her. She shoots the synth in the face point blank and gets up while shaking her head. A soldier wearing T-45 power armor walks behind her alongside one wearing a T-60.

"Elder Makinami, we're ready to move out." Mari gets up and turns to the soldier as she nods. A vertibird lands in front of them as she gets on with the vehicle heading towards the Prydwen but this time another blimp near it with a third coming in. On the blimp is an insignia of a sword in front of a pair of wings and in the back of the sword are gears. The brotherhood of steel.

The vertibird docks at the station and Mari gets out of it with soldiers giving there salute and wait for her address Some of them are ghouls and super mutants of the Midwest, the brotherhood has changed. Gone are the ways of Maxson and now the return of the ways of Lyons and the ways of the Midwestern chapter. She enters the elder's deck of the Prydwen as soldiers, ghouls and super mutants surround her ready to listen to there leader.

"Brothers and sisters, the road behind has been long….and fraught with difficulty. Each and everyone of you has surpassed by expectations. By rapidly facilitating our soon to be arrival in the commonwealth. You have accomplished this amazing feat, without a hint of purpose or direction and most impressive, without question. Now that this ship is in position. It is time to reveal our purpose here. Beneath the commonwealth, there is a cancer known as the institute. A malignant growth that must be cut before it infects the surface, they are experimenting with dangerous technology. They could prove to be the worlds undoing for the second time. In recent history, the institute scientists have created a weapon that transcends the destructive nature of the atom bomb….they call there creation: The synth. A robotic abomination of technology that is free thinking and masscarades as a human beings . This….notion that can be granted free wil is not only offensive but horribly dangerous and like the atom, if it isn't harnessed properly, it has the potential of rendering us extinct as a species and others. I will not let the institute continue this line of experimentation since I experienced it first hand with courier and lone wanderer too and I like many brotherhood members saw new Vegas burn from the institute's pride in its madness. Therefore….the institute and they're synths who work for them are considered enemies of the brotherhood of steel while synths against them are assets who can be granted membership and the institute shall be dealt with shortly and mercilessly. This campaign will be costly and many lives will be lost but in the end: We will be saving human, ghoul, mutant kind and the world from its worst enemy…its self." Mari ended and gives her salute.

"Ad Victorium!" She saluted as the soldiers, scribes, super mutants and ghouls saluted back.

"Ad Victorium!" They replied in unison as proctor Quinlan enters the room.

"I have to admit, I hated you at first. Maybe because you aren't Maxson but combining the Midwestern chapter with us made the brotherhood powerful than ever. We have tanks, jets, jeeps and numbers now." Quinlan commented.

"I'm from the Midwest after all. Now, tell captain Kells that we're heading to the commonwealth. We're going to war now." Quinlan nods and walks away as Mari looks out into the window.


	3. Cambridge

Shinji and Asuka walk in the desolate road leading to diamond city, the same thing over and over again. Destroyed trees and pretty much the butchered carcass of the old world molded into a new one. A malfeasance to what once was. Mutated harmless life forms now pave the street like radroaches and radstags. Two headed deer pretty much. Skeletons on the road with cluttered belongings and weapons too, signs of struggle and signs of madness is seen. Shinji's lucky that he got into a vault...but the question remains, what were the vaults like?

"Excuse me, Asuka?" Shinji asks causing Asuka to turn around while walking. Asuka notices a stingwing behind Shinji causing her to aim her assault rifle at it much to Asuka's shock.

"Back." Asuka notified with Shinji gets out of the way and shoots the stingwing thus killing it and blowing into pieces. Her rifle is highly updated after the events of DC capitol but she prefers the company of assault rifles. Just this rifle seems to be professional in terms of characteristics.

"T-thank you..." He thanked and continued to walk.

"So Asuka, what were the other vaults like? You said that there were experiments in them...what were the experiments like?" Shinji asks as Asuka remembers all of the vaults she's encountered in her lifetime. A ton of vaults in fact, one where they separated people and resulted in some kind of race war, sixty-nine, Gary and other things that went bump in wastelands like the super mutants.

"Varied remember? I remember that last vault I went to vault 108 and let me tell you, most annoying and creepy experience I've ever head...next to Andale." Asuka bragged.

"What was in it?"

"Apparently the overseer had cancer and vault-tec wanted to clone him thus creating a legion of deranged clones named Gary. They all say Gary only and they all tried to kill me. Psychotic piece of shits they are. Good thing I had a special friend to take care of them." Asuka explained.

"Others?"

"There was vault seventy-seven with the man surrounded by puppets to the point he turned deranged and tried to kill me when I fled from DC. I destroyed his puppet. And there was that vault that had FEV and turned people into super mutants...yeah, vault-tec were cold hearted people who pursued the impossible all the time at the cost of human lives and dignity. Bunch of idiots if you ask me." She continued.

"...Besides the vault you came from, was there any vault where bad things never happened?" Shinji worriedly asks.

"There was vault eighty-one I heard, the overseer had a change of heart since the vault was used to test virus's and became a thriving community. I'd like to move in one day. Call it home." Asuka whistled as they kept walking only for Shinji to trip on a dead Brahmin calf but doesn't fall.

"Why did you leave you're vault?"

"...A story for another team, lets just say I didn't choose to leave." Asuka replied coldly remembering what overseer Almadover did to her alongside Amata. She was a hero and she had to leave cause she would inspire the people to leave the vault. She never forgave Amata's father also. Casting her into a harsh wasteland to find a father who left for good reasons. Shinji looks a little depressed so Asuka decides to lighten the mood.

"Say remember those Gary clones? I remember once they tried to talk to me by saying Gary all time and I just nodded pretending I knew what they were saying. "Gary!" This and that! I'm now calling the language Garynese and adding to my wasteland survival guide." Asuka mocked as Shinji chuckles.

"There should be a dictionary about it too! Gary means yes and Gary means no!" Shinji added. The two start laughing a little.

"Gary!" A voice yelled in the distance.

"Like that!" Shinji laughed wildly. Asuka's eyes widen and she places her hand on Shinji's mouth to silence him. She signals Shinji to pull out his gauss rifle and pistol while she pulls out her Xuan Long assault rifle. There's a red dot on her radar indicating an enemy nearby. Laser rifle shots are heard also too which indicates an advanced group nearby like the gunners. She signals Shinji to stop and peers over from a destroyed car.

"Gaary!" A Gary runs past by them armed with a tire iron as a horde of them are surrounded with dead feral ghouls. Its the Cambridge police station. Asuka spots a brotherhood of steel knight shooting his laser rifle at the Gary's while another Gary is shooting at him with a revolver but a scribe soldier near him makes a three sixty turn and kills the Gary.

"Gary!" Asuka wonders how the hell did the Gary's get here. Did she miss a part of the vault she was in? This was almost impossible...unless someone rejump started the cloning machine and started a mass migration of Gary's.

"Haha! Gary!" The Gary is shot in the face by the brotherhood of steel knight with his laser and changes his aim to another one heading towards him as he fires the weapon which takes his head off of his body thus killing him. More Gary's move in with Asuka getting out of cover and firing her Xuan Long assault rifle at the Gary's who didn't notice her. A Gary turns around but is shot dead by Shinji with the gauss rifle.

"Gary!" Another roared and pulls out a machete then runs towards Asuka who draws her shishkebab flame sword and impales him and grabs his pipe pistol from his pocket and shoots the rest of the Gary's nearby.

"Gaaary!" A clone screamed in horror but the injured brotherhood knight behind a barricade rises up and grabs him by the throat and strangles him with her wrist. All of the Gary's lay.

"Civilian, identify yourself!" The knight yelled at Asuka who squints her eyes at the knight.

"I suggest you identify yourself first, paladin." Asuka smirked causing him to widen his eyes.

"Huh...it appears you're familiar with the brotherhood of steel. Paladin Touji Suzuhara, as you know I'm from the brotherhood of steel. This is knight Mayumi Yamagishi and scribe Amano." Touji introduced.

"Now time to introduce yourself and how do you know the brotherhood ranks." He ended.

"I was a member of the brotherhood of steel hence why I know you all. Maxson sent you again after one month?" Asuka asks.

"Maxson is dead, killed during the battle of New Vegas. There's a new elder with a much more broader and wider belief now, elder Mari Makinami." Scribe Amano replied. Asuka is shaken up a little...she remembered seeing Maxson as a little boy and how he was so honest. Showed respect and everything...

"Wait...you said Mari Makinami, what kind of leader is she?" Asuka asks again.

"Mari has changed the brotherhood and the return of the ways of Lyons, she combined both chapters of the brotherhood Midwest and East coast into one and made us stronger than ever. She let sane super mutants and ghouls in alongside synths and increased our numbers by the millions." Touji praised.

"Heck, I'm a synth too!" Knight Mayumi commented before injecting a stimpack into herself.

"We also lost our best sniper, a ghoul named Halloway. He died a heroic death." Touji added. Asuka is...rather surprised. This new brotherhood sounds like the Midwest who allowed races in. Its been a long time since she saw Mari and she's already impressed by her leadership.

"I'm sorry about your loss...why are you here?" Shinji asks.

"We're on a scouting mission to find a synth paladin here. His name is Danse and Makinami told us to find him in the area. So far no leads. Now our turn in asking questions, who are you two?" Touji replied.

"Asuka Langley Soryu and this is Shinji Ikari."

"Wait...you're the lone wanderer! You disappeared from DC years ago...why you're here in the commonwealth?" Mayumi asks.

"Its something personal." Asuka answered.

"And why is Shinji here with you?" Scribe Amano asks.

"I'm here to find my mother and sister, they've been kidnapped by the institute when I was cryogenically frozen since 2077." Shinji explained causing the brotherhood members to widen their eyes.

"2077? That's when the bombs hit...and the institute? We're at war with them again, they've burned New Vegas to the ground and caused many deaths along the way. We believe the source of their resurgence is in the commonwealth and one paladin, Danse, knows a way to beat them. The synths in the brotherhood know the institute but the intel is outdated. This new...institute, is already sounding like the enclave. Reports state that synth forces are utilizing enclave tech either from the enclave or somewhere else." Touji explained.

"You need help though?" Shinji asks.

"Yes, we were trying to recover an old signal drive that would help us contact the Prydwen, Gawain, and Mordrid but feral ghouls arrived and we were overrun. Those Gary's saved us...and then wanted to kill us then. You know what happened next." Mayumi said.

"Then don't worry, we'll help you guys out." Asuka assured.

"Good, my teammates aren't fit enough for combat until backup arrives." Touji replied and put on his helmet then turns to the two.

"You two, go back into the police station and lock the doors." He ordered as Amano picks Mayumi up by her arm and they enter the police station. Touji turns to the two and signals them to follow him. His power armor makes mechanical stomps while walking and armed with his laser rifle with Asuka loading her weapon as Shinji comes last while loading his gauss rifle.

"So tell me, how did the second battle of New Vegas go? I've heard the first...didn't end well." Asuka asks.

"It was successful, the new might of the brotherhood made the institute retreat through an array of bombing runs and heavy firepower from both mutant and human brotherhood members. Too bad the city is unrecognizable. By the time its been liberated, the people were half starved and nearly to the point of death. Most died during the winter because they were too frail to endure. The institute has been doing the same thing they did, taking humans and using their DNA to make synths. An offense to humanity itself but others synths who joined the brotherhood wish to have revenge against the people who created them." Touji explained.

"So you believe the resurgence of the institute is here in the commonwealth?" Shinji asked.

"We believe so, after we burned down the Nevada branch, we believe that the institute fled here as their last stronghold. Elder Makinami sent us to investigate. She appears to be right though which is why we need that signal drive to contact the Prydwen, Gawain, and Mordrid so we can finally end the institute once and for all." The three stop at a building in front of them.

"That's the place, we get in and get out." Touji takes point and aims his laser rifle then opens the door while lowering the weapon. There's dead feral ghouls lying everywhere, laser burns on them in particular which makes it seem so obvious that something is here. He takes a closer look at the dust on the ground...there's blue accents on them, this used to be a feral ghoul.

"These ghouls were killed by laser rifles...that don't belong to gunners." He observed.

"How can you tell?" Asuka asks.

"Look at the entrails on the dust, its blue and that indicates the color of the laser bolt. The only weapons that have a blue laser bolt are institute ones, red ones indicate either gunner or brotherhood." Touji replied.

"What are gunners?" Shinji asks confused.

"Gunners are a mercenary group here in the commonwealth, they seem to be declining after the minutemen rose to power here. Anyway, we may have stumbled upon the site of an aftermath of a synth operation...or maybe a currently active synth operation. Check your surroundings and watch your corners." Touji advised and leads the two. The building appears to belong to robco, especially with the models on display. Signs of struggle are seen with footprints of blood leading to another room nearby, its the R and D room. Touji takes point again and presses the button on the door but it doesn't open.

"Looks like you need a terminal..." Touji observed. Shinji looks at the desk and goes on the computer to see a bunch of passwords separated by codes and texts, its a good thing he's skilled at computers though. Shinji looks at the special symbols that can help him remove the duds from the computer so he won't have to be pressing random words only for his tries to run out. He removes all the duds and presses the one word that reads BLING which causes the door to unlock.

"Outstanding." The knight complemented. The door opens to reveal a large atrium and they take a look around the place, Asuka picks up some assault rifle rounds and pistol ammo alongside some .44 rounds. Shinji opens a door nearby to reveal the generator room. Since the discovery of atomic powered fuel sources, this generator room is pretty much a nuclear reactor. Albeit a dead one though. His pip-boy indicator shows that the signal is coming from down.

"Uh...guys?" Shinji called as Touji rushes.

"Its down there, good thinking Shinji." Touji takes point with Asuka coming near Shinji and they head down. Its a long way down and a power armor can withstand the shock from falling off of this thing. They finally make it down with Asuka picking a lock nearby to open the door, she takes a couple of fusion cores and 10mm pistol rounds. Touji feels that something isn't right down here...

Shinji enters the room with Asuka and picks up what the green indicator on his pip boy shows. Its the signal drive.

"Excuse me, Suzuhara, is this what you're looking for?" Shinji asks as Touji turns around with his eyes lighting up from behind his power armor helmet.

"Good job, now lets get out of here-" The hear a phasing noise with Touji's molecular signal detector going haywire...he knows who it is.

"We have company!" Touji warned and raises his laser rifle at the upper staircase they were in as synths begin entering the area. Unlike the other synths, these are gen-3 models but they seem to act like there standard counterparts. Asuka uses her VATS to target a synth at the head which she fires her Xuan Long assault rifle at it which heavily injures the robot in the process but lives regardless of its injuries but barely. Suddenly a man wearing a tan trench coat came out of nowhere and fires his revolver at the synth which kills it then vanishes.

Touji shoots at a synth's legs while it rushes downstairs right before another shot hits its other leg and blows it off thus causing it to tumble down the stair and in front of Touji's power armored foot. It tries to get up but Touji stomps on its face and crushes it in the process due to the weight of the power armor. More synths begin to flood the room as Shinji uses the gauss rifle to hit more of them which pushes a single synth into its comrades giving them a small fraction of time to reload before more come inside. He reloads the rifle again...

Suddenly out of nowhere, a black sleeved wrist and hand grabs him by the throat. Joining it is a another hand armed with a laser pistol as Asuka finishes off the last synth with Touji turning around and aiming his laser rifle at the assailant.

"X6-88, stand down!" Touji yelled at the synth courser who is restraining Shinji.

"Under orders of the institute, I am supposed to extract Shinji Ikari." The black synth replied while Shinji struggles to move but his grip is too strong. Asuka uses her VATS but X6 keeps moving.

"Your not going anywhere! The only place your going to, is a cell onboard the Prydwen or scribe Neriah's table!" Touji taunted. Shinji uses the back of his head to hit X6 in the chin which causes the synth to let go and aim his laser pistol at Shinji but Asuka switches to her alien blaster to severely injure X6 which blows off his arm. The courser then activates a device on his pocket to teleport away somewhere else.

"Dammit, he got away...no matter, got what we were looking for." Touji sighed and takes point. The three get out of the building with Asuka checking the magazines on the weapon since alien ammo is rare and puts it away back to her inventory. They walk back to the police station is silent as Shinji is boiling in anger...that was the man who kidnapped his mother and he got away...Asuka could tell but she chooses not to since she had the same feeling she had when she was exiled from vault 101. This world became cruel to Shinji like it did to Asuka.

Asuka often wonders...has she gone insane? Exiled from her own home, seeing her friends die, seeing her father die, abducted by aliens...is this was some kind of mental coping for what happened? Acting prideful? No matter, she has a mission to complete and soon she'll be back to DC after ten years.

They finally make it to the police station with Touji entering first and giving the signal drive to scribe Amano who installs it on a radio. It gives off a massive signal thus making it clear that the brotherhood will be coming real soon.

"I'd like to thank you all for the assistance." Touji thanked.

"Ahem." Asuka glared.

"Oh yes, here's your caps." Touji hands the two 200 caps as Asuka splits with Shinji.

"Um...bottle caps?" Shinji asks.

"Yes, as you can see, its the new currency since pre-war money is hard to come by these days. Anyway, I saw your skills wanderer and I have to tell you, the stories were true. You can come back anytime you want to if you want to report in with the brotherhood. Ad victorium." Touji saluted with Asuka doing the same.

"Ad victorium." Asuka saluted back since she served with elder Lyons and she can tell Touji is from the East coast. Asuka turns to Shinji who has cooled down and walks towards the door and opens it...

Surrounding them are minutemen armed with laser muskets but not in a threatening manner. Walking past the crowd is none other than Nora Morgan, general of the minutemen, destroyer of the institute, and also wife of Piper Wright which makes Piper Morgan.

Asuka aims her assault rifle in response since this looks like a perfect spot for an ambush right now.

"Stand down wanderer, we're not here to harm you." She walks towards the two.

"Apparently, Taisuke was supposed to find you but he's off doing jobs for the Cabot house, its just delivering that's all...nothing that involves a serum." Nora looks at Shinji who is in shock...Nora ended up like him. She pulls Shinji into a hug, a tight one.

"Oh my God, Shinji...I'm so sorry about your family. I'll do whatever it takes in my power to find them." Nora swore.

"Let me guess: Misato told you about us?"

"Yes and the notion of a legendary hero in the commonwealth is great news. Come, we'll drop you off at diamond city." She said. Shinji's face brights up a little and comes with Nora. Asuka looks at Nora and identifies her as the sole survivor, someone she can trust besides her own brother who she thinks doesn't trust her anymore.

"Mame, how about the brotherhood members inside? They'll cause another war." A minuteman asks before Touji comes out with laser muskets drawn at him.

"Nora Morgan? General of the minutemen?" He asks. Nora sighs and turns around to him.

"What is it?"

"As I can see amongst the crowd, paladin Danse is one of the minutemen. We wish to speak to him." Danse lowers his laser musket, one month of peace and the brotherhood calls him back.

"I suggest you shouldn't be calling me paladin anymore soldier." Danse replied and took off his straw hat.

"But you're paladin to us, listen, the brotherhood needs you again. Maxson...Maxson is dead." Touji announced.

"Arthur? Oh no..." Danse muttered.

"My recon team was sent by the new elder, Mari Makinami, to find you. As you don't know, we lost our sniper who was a ghoul and we're already short on supplies. We believe you know a way to defeat the institute." Touji explained.

"I don't know anything." Danse replied.

"Regardless, when the Prydwen, Gawain, and Mordrid come, we'd like you to report in. Elder Makinami is a far better leader than Maxson really, she allows synths and ghouls into it alongside super mutants who are sane. The brotherhood has become stronger than ever. The ways of Lyons has returned." Touji implored as Danse crosses his arm.

"Fine then." Danse sighed.

"Ad victorium." Touji saluted as he looked up to paladin Danse. Nora signals Asuka and Shinji to follow her which they do.

* * *

Diamond city.

Taisuke enters his apartment after a busy day with Jack Cabot, the man needed to run some errands and Taisuke, like the courier he was, did them since he needed the caps. The caps stash he has is worth a fortune but he chooses to use it on alcohol, bourbon, booze, and vodka not chems. Last he did chems, he almost overdosed on his first try. Good thing Cass revived him. Taisuke lays on his bed and looks at the ceiling.

"Same ceiling..." He could still feel it...the burns, the heat, the radiation. He could still hear them...like they were still there but at the same time not. Taisuke looks under his bed to reveal a box and grabs it. Its knick knacks from the Mojave and pictures too. He makes a ghost of a smile and takes a look.

Back then, him and Cass found a camera and decided to mess around. Take pictures wherever they go. First one was with Dinky the dinosaur where he met Boone, Boone...photobombed them. He didn't even notice Boone inside the jaw of the saurian statue. The second is Cass winning the jackpot in the casino. The third is a picture of Nolan McNamara. The fourth is pictures of brotherhood of steel soldiers, one of them is giving a peace sign. The last picture though...its a group photo.

In the center right is Cass or also known as Rose of Sharon Cassidy and on the center left is Taisuke. Both kneeling with their specific rifles and looking at the camera. In the center of both of them is Lily Brown, a nightkin. On the left of Taisuke is Arcade Gannon who has a warm smile, next to Gannon is Craig Boone who is holstering his rifle on his shoulder. Next to Boone is Raul. On the right is Veronica Santangelo and Rex, the cyborg dog. Hovering over them is ED-E.

Taisuke smiles fondly...only for his vision to turn yellowish as the subject of the photos eyes begin to bleed a black liquid and new Vegas set on fire. He could hear their voices and they're saying the same word he hears.

Help me.

The vision ends as Taisuke is gasping for air. He had enough now, the courier gets up and opens the door to get to go the dugout inn where he can just drink his sorrows away as a shell the hero who saved the Mojave.


	4. The story of the wanderer

_A cut of vault 101 opened appears._

 **Narrator:** And so it was that the lone wanderer ventured fourth from vault 101. Intent on discovering the fate of a father who had once sacrificed future of humanity for that only of his only child.

 _Screenshots show the wasteland and other atrocities._

 **Narrator:** The capitol wasteland proved a cruel inhospitable place...

 _Screen shows Asuka walking down the road._

 **Narrator:** But the lone wanderer refused to give into the vices that had claimed so many others.

 _Cut of raiders being shot at by Asuka while she's saving Sarah Lyons._

 **Narrator:** The values passed on to father to daughter...

 _Cut of Three-dog._

 **Narrator:** Selflessness.

 _An image shows Madison Li._

 **Narrator:** Compassion.

 _Cut to a brotherhood of steel member._

 **Narrator:** Honor. Guided this noble soul through countless trials and triumphs...

 _Screens fade to various people who Asuka helped._

 **Narrator:** But it was not until the end of this long road that the lone wanderer learned the true meaning of the greatest of virtues...

 _Cut to Sarah Lyons placing her hand on the glass of project purity with Asuka coughing blood from radiation._

 **Narrator:** Sacrifice. Steeping into the irradiated control room of project purity, the child followed the example of the father. Sacrificing life itself for the greater good of mankind.

 _Shows an image of president Eden._

 **Narrator:** Thankfully when selected by the sinister president to be his instrument for annihilation, the wanderer refused. Humanity with all its flaws was deemed worthy for preservation. The waters of life flowed at last. Pure for any and all. The capitol wasteland at long last was saved.

 _Cuts to the view of DC._

 **Narrator:** But this didn't end the story of the lone wanderer for she faced a threat that didn't just threaten the wasteland...but the world. Like what she did before, she fought bravely...at the cost of her friends.

 _Cuts to Asuka holding paladin Cross._

 **Narrator:** It was here that the lone wanderer's story ended. When the wastelands needed her the most, she vanished...

 _Cuts to Asuka walking down a road but alone this time..._

 **Narrator:**...Until now.

 _A screenshot shows Asuka arriving in Jen Hills._

 **Narrator:** For a new story to begin, the story of the fourth child.


	5. Quinlan's files

[Opening notes.]

These entries are my attempt at writing a timeline documenting Elder Makinami's rise within the ranks of the Brotherhood. It's my sincerest wish that these entries will one day be complied in a classic printed book format and distributed throughout the Wasteland. Long live Elder Maxson Makinami and long live the Brotherhood!

[Background.]

After four weeks in the commonwealth, it became apparent that the threat of the institute was long gone. The minutemen have everything covered with the brotherhood's backing. We packed up our belongings and soon left the commonwealth then went back to the citadel. Like always, life in the brotherhood remained the same as it is with the wasteland being slightly safer than ever. That was until we received a distress call from our brothers in the Mojave. Citing that the institute has returned and worst of all, had a branch in Nevada hence why and requested all chapters of the brotherhood of steel to rendezvous in Nevada. Elder Maxson scrambled forces and soon, the brotherhood was at war again. En route to Nevada, the Prdywen ran into contact with two ships: Mordrid and Gawain. Thus, the East Coast has now met the Midwest chapter of the brotherhood of steel. Unlike the East, the Midwest allowed ghouls, synths and super mutants (Apparently in the Midwest, super mutants are peaceful and helped the Midwest brotherhood form after one of their ships crashed) which was met with mixed reactions from elder Maxson. Regardless, the two chapters had an uneasy alliance but soon formed as they had one common goal to defeat the institute. But one paladin gained Maxson's attention...

[Enter Makinami]

Enter Mari Makinami, young knight and daughter of Yuno Makinami, and the descendent of the very founder/general/hero of the Midwest brotherhood of steel-dubbed the warrior. When the distress call was heard, the Midwest brotherhood scrambled into action led by elder Larson and Mari amongst the soldiers there. When the East coast and Midwest met, it was of great hostility between each of them and Mari was determined to bring the two chapters together. Despite her best...efforts, the relationship between both chapters were moderate and out of respect really. The Midwest brotherhood sounded similar to Own Lyons beliefs and Mari held onto them and showed admiration for Lyons.

[Accomplishments]

Like Maxson, Mari had accomplishments in the past as a knight of the brotherhood of steel. At age 12, she survived a raider and slaver attack and fended them off via pipe pistol and killed two of them right before using the turrets to do the rest of the bidding. At age 13, she worked with a deathclaw (there are sentient deathclaws in the Midwest) to take down a super mutant leader named Power as he was working with local triggermen (The super mutants in the Midwest seem very intelligent and borderline genius) to traffic chems. Mari worked with Goris, son of Gruthak, to take down Power. It wasn't then she became a full fledged paladin of the brotherhood of steel and became an honored member. When the battle of New Vegas began and our elder...Maxson died in combat, Mari was kidnapped and returned with altercations after experimentations from the institute. Altercations that would become their downfall.

[Our new leader]

Elder Larson and Maxson were killed in the battle of New Vegas thus leaving both chapters leaderless...before their deaths, they looked to Mari as the leader of the brotherhood of steel. Saw her skills. Before Maxson died, he gave Mari the rank of elder...a rank that other elders would've agreed on bestowed on her of all people. When brotherhood forces retreated, elder Makinami joined the Midwest and East coast brotherhood together as one singular army and returned to the ways of Lyons. Now reborn, the brotherhood became a full force and a large army. elder Makinami saw how the Midwest treated the upcoming battle as a minor inconvenience and soon restocked to do another run against the institute. Days upon days, the city was being shelled by artillery and tanks mixed with airstrikes. As the ash settled, synth coursers tried their best to fight us...for in front of their eyes was the brotherhood flag flying proudly over the strip. Elder Makinami has proven her worth.

[Aftermath]

Elder Makinami reigns supreme in the Capital Wasteland and Midwest, and her authority and influence have been spreading across the Eastern Seaboard, thanks in no small part by the mobility afford by the Prydwen, Gawain and Mordrid. She has the full support of the Elders back on the West Coast and the Midwest, who have proudly reported that they've been eradicating cults that have popped up, worshipping Makinami as though she's some kind of goddess. Makinami herself is almost offended by the idea of being referred to as a deity, as it goes against everything he believes in. Mari Makinami is happy to be one thing...the perfect human specimen, and example of everything a human being can achieve. Assisted, even enhanced, imbued by advanced technology, but still very much human.


	6. Atom baby!

Asuka, Shinji, Nora, and other minutemen walk in the roads of commonwealth. Its almost unreal seeing Nora again, he remembered last time he saw her, a barbecue party in Jen Hills where Nora, Nate and Shaun were invited. Apparently after Yui left her old husband while she was pregnant, Nate and Nora volunteered to be Shinji's godparents in case Yui's old husband would come back and try to take Shinji. Shinji has to admit, Nate and Nora are pretty much like second parents to him. The roads are filled with minutemen patrols and some even battalions passing by them.

"Nora...you're the leader of the minutemen?" Shinji asks in curiosity. Shinji always knew Nora to an extent and never saw her doing...combat roles. She was a lawyer after all. Nora has changed also, she's wearing the same outfit Kellogg wore and her hair is now grayish white and disheveled. She is armed with an assault rifle too with reflex sight. Nora turns around while walking.

"Of course, I managed to work my way in the ruins of the world. Rebuild what's left of it from scratch. Sure there were conflictions with the factions but in the end, I chose the minutemen. To keep everyone safe." Nora replied.

"Wait...factions? The commonwealth is divided?" Shinji asks.

"Was divided, until I managed to destroy the institute...or the first incarnation of the institute." Nora explained. One month and she has to go through telling Shinji what happened.

"You destroyed the institute...? That was you?" The boy gasps knowing that he didn't know that Nora was capable of destruction.

"I did." She chokes a little and takes a breathe out remembering Shaun. No, that wasn't Shaun, the Shaun she knows is back at diamond city messing around with Nat. That...person was father, not Shaun.

"Nora...are you hiding something from me? Where's Nate-"

"Nate is dead." Nora bursts much to Shinji's shock. This cruel world claimed another victim and it was a person who was like a second father to him is now gone.

"Oh my god...I'm sorry." Shinji apologized.

"Don't be, I avenged him by destroying the institute." Nora replied. They make it to the city with minutemen walking around the city and patrolling the place and guarding as they simply nod at the general.

"Is this...diamond city?" Shinji asks again.

"No, its not. But my minutemen have finally cleared the city around it thus making it safe to travel outside of city boundaries. Diamond city well, its made from what remains of Fenway stadium." Nora replied.

"But...you can't fit anyone inside." He tries to think about it, of all places, how can you make a city inside Fenway stadium? Sure you can make a houses on the ground but how really?

"Oh they improvise." The group stops at the stadium with guards in every corner. Minutemen soldiers disband and go on there regular routines as Nora enters first with Asuka coming in second and Shinji last. They walk upstairs as Shinji leads them...his jaw drops. All around him are makeshift homes made from junk on the field, a copycat of civilization. This is the place, diamond city, the great jewel of the commonwealth. Like New York city, if you make it here then you can make it everywhere. Shops selling their valuables, people wandering around. In the center is Takahashi's restaurant and in front of his side is Moe Cronan's store, Arturo Rodgriguez's gun shop, and commonwealth scrap. Diamond city guards pass by, wearing typical football gear and helmet with goggles.

"Take it in Shinji, this will be your new home." Asuka bragged as Shinji stops at her.

"My new...home?" Shinji asks.

"I sent Asuka to find you. The moment I found out about vault 113, I wanted to find you but Asuka came to Sanctuary Hills and I ended up hiring her." Nora turns to Asuka.

"Anyway, here's your pay." Nora pays Asuka 101 caps which represents her number on her vault suit. Asuka holsters her weapon on her back and signals Shinji to come with her to his house in diamond city. Its near a power armor station. Asuka opens the door with Shinji entering it. Its a rather large room, the bed is on the top guided by a staircase and TV in the living room. Next to the door is another bed with a table next to it, on top of the table is a picture of James. Mounted on the wall nearby is a Tunnel Snake's jacket. On the wall leading to the staircase is the minutemen flag. In the living room is a glass case containing T45 power armor, the power armor used in the Capitol Wasteland.

"This place feels...like home." Shinji commented.

"Glad you're used to it cause we're going to be roommates." Asuka bragged and sits on the couch then turns on the channel. The screen is black and white and its showing vault-tec propaganda which she changes to brotherhood of steel propaganda which causes her to sigh again then switches it to the silver shroud animated series. She never watched anything in vault 101, just read Grognack the barbarian comics and listened to a radio. Another activity was reviewing for the GOAT test which she realized that it was redundant.

The door behind them opens to reveal Nora again.

"How do you like it? This used to be my old home but as payment, Asuka gets to have this since I now live in Piper's. Anyway, you two take a look around the place. I'll be in publick occurrences if you need me." Nora walks away as Asuka gets up.

"I gotta meet my younger brother, he lives in Diamond city." Asuka turns around and walks outside the door. Shinji decides to explore the place too and heads out...to see Nora arguing with Malcom Latimer.

"For the last time, you'll pay for my son's death!" Malcom yelled at Nora. Nora sighs remembering that she took out Nelson during a chem deal from Henry Cooke who wanted to reconcile with James Pembroke after he slept with his wife.

"Look, I was just following orders."

"No excuses-"Walking from the entrance is Taisuke after a job from the Cabot house. He spots Malcom threatening Nora much to his annoyance, triggermen were always the bane of his existence. Piece of shits like Malcom don't know who they always threaten. Taisuke speed walks towards Malcom.

"Hey, hey, don't you know who this is?" Taisuke asks as Malcom turns around.

"Yes, I am aware-the general of the minutemen and I don't give a damn about it! I can always pay out her men!" Malcom replied.

"So you don't care hm? Then that means you have nothing to loose...in that case-" Taisuke pulls out the deliverer semi-automatic pistol and shoots Malcom in the chest five times before turn his gun sideways underneath his chin and shooting him underneath it. The man falls on the ground as diamond city guards look in horror with one looking at Taisuke.

"So you gonna arrest me?" Taisuke asks.

"No, not because you're the most scariest thing next to a deathclaw but I had it with Malcom's triggermen shooting at Nora. Lets hope by killing the guy you stopped them. Don't want to clean up the streets." The guard replied hoping this is the last time blood has been spilt on the streets of Diamond city. Constant gunfights between triggermen and minutemen were common during the night and it always ends the same way, the minutemen win.

"Thanks Bronson." The courier thanked and holstered the deliverer. Nora kind of hated Taisuke killing Malcom, she wanted to kill him herself and today was the day it was going to end.

"So...you brought another vault dweller here? Let me guess, he's from 81." Taisuke guessed.

"He's from a vault but not from 81, he's from 113. Apparently, vault 113's experiment was to make some kind of brotherhood of steel rip off of some sort via cryostasis but the vault was invaded by the institute from what I've heard from Misato. The occupants were all abducted and Shinji was the only one left." Nora replied.

"Jeez, the institute has some balls coming back from the dead after what you've done...and its been a month! Don't they have anything better to do like piss off the brotherhood of steel?"

"They do, they came back via Nevada branch-"

"Don't remind me." Taisuke growled. Nora knew what Taisuke was going through so its best to shut up about it.

"Speaking of the brotherhood of steel, we just encountered a recon team around here. You fought with them in the second battle of New Vegas so you have first hand account of what this new brotherhood is like." Taisuke chuckles, so Mari has finally done it...she became an influential leader of the brotherhood and gave it new life.

"Welp, I bet ten caps that this'll be over soon. In case the brotherhood does an assault, tell me. I'd be happy to eliminate institute sons of bitches after what they've done to New Vegas." He replied to Nora then turns to Shinji.

"Well, man outta time. So, why you're here?" Taisuke asks.

"I'm just here looking for my family." Shinji explained.

"Hm...I think I know the guy who can help you but first, lets get this on publick occurrences. It'll garner support." Taisuke signals Shinji to come with him as the publick occurrences office is pretty close. Standing on a plastic crate is Nat Wright, younger sister of Piper Wright.

"Extra! Extra! Read all about! Brotherhood of steel maybe coming back to the commonwealth!" Nat said as Taisuke walks up to her.

"Hey courier, this issue will get you riled up!" The girl gives Taisuke a newspaper which is an article written by Hikari Horaki, the latest employee of the publick. Taisuke loves her articles, always something exciting...that, there's anti-institute articles too which makes fun of it. Taisuke enters the office first then Shinji is next. The door reveals Piper standing beside the fire place and Hikari on a typewriter writing about the new enigmatic leader of the brotherhood of steel who is now the new face of the organization.

"Hey Taisuke, I might need an interview tomorrow. Its about the new leader of the brotherhood of steel." Hikari informed.

"Later Hick, this guy right here has a story to tell." Taisuke moves over to reveal Shinji. Piper raises her eyebrows.

"And he is? I can tell he's a vault dweller so that makes it like four blues in one month." Piper replied.

"Another pre-war relic for the ages." Taisuke smiled as Piper's eyes widen then gets her notepad. Piper always wondered besides ghouls, if anyone experienced pre-war life.

"Alright, lets introduce ourselves! I'm Piper Morgan, reporter and also wife of the general of the minutemen, Nora Morgan." Piper introduced herself. Shinji isn't surprised though, Nora was always bisexual and Yui mentioned it when she was talking about Nora in college and how she experimented on other women.

"Shin...Shinji Ikari of Jen Hills." Shinji replied.

"So from what I've heard, you lived in the pre-war era and like always, you saw the same things here in the commonwealth. Of all places, what do you think of our great city-diamond city?" Piper asks.

"I think its a beacon of hope. Especially what happened...it just feels...I don't know what to say. I'm taking it all in." Shinji answered back to Piper.

"Alien? Well, this is the commonwealth after all. So why are you here in Diamond city?"

"I'm looking for my sister and mother. They were kidnapped by the institute when I was in cryostasis, my dad tried to fight them off and the brotherhood of steel came in. Before I can open the door, I was frozen again." Shinji said.

"The institute? Oh god...did you find your dad?"

"No, the lone wanderer woke me up and the rest...is well, history."

"So what was it like before the war? What were you doing before the bombs hit?"

"Getting ready for highschool and that was it. I think Nora told you rest so no point in saying the same thing you know." Shinji said. Piper squints her eyes at Shinji and agrees, there isn't much content about pre-war life as of now.

"You're right but you have anything to say to everyone here in Diamond city?" Piper asks. Shinji tries to think of something...

"In a world filled with misery and uncertainty. It is a great comfort to know, that in the end, there is a light in the darkness." Shinji replied. Taisuke smirks remembering Joshua Graham said that before. He still kept Joshua's pistol after what happened and attended his funeral and burial at Zion.

"Wow, its Nora level deep. Thanks for the interview blue five." Piper thanked. Taisuke signals Shinji to come with him and they head outside, the courier makes a left toward Moe Cronan and another left with Shinji following him. Even though he's glad to see civilization, Shinji feels diamond city is a little cramped up. They make a right to another alleyway where Nick Valentine's office and a new one next to him reading Nagisa agencies.

"He just moved here from the capitol wasteland via brotherhood transportation or at least brotherhood backing. Last I remember he arrived via vertibird with brotherhood soldiers carrying his stuff." Taisuke commented and opened the door. Inside is the same interior to Nick Valentine's office except Kaworu has an assistant: Haylen. Ex-brotherhood scribe, left when the brotherhood went back to the citadel. She did hear the good news about Mari though and she greatly admires the new leader of the brotherhood of steel.

"Haylen! Long time no see so where's the old toaster anyway?" Taisuke asks Haylen who looks up to him.

"Dunno, he was on a case. Something about the triggermen..."

"Oh please don't tell me this involves the Latimers..." Taisuke sighs.

"I got a guy outta time that's looking for his family and I don't want to deal with any assholes here in the commonwealth." He continued.

"Well I'm sorry, I'm not Kaworu's personal tracker. He said he was going to vault 114 about a missing girl." Haylen explained as Taisuke nodded.

"Vault 114...something isn't right. This has to do something with Skinny Malone." Taisuke muttered.

"Didn't you kill him? Like all triggermen that get in your way?" Haylen asks.

"Yeah I did...hey Shinji, lets head out." Taisuke notified and signals Shinji to come along. Shinji feels a dangerous vibe around Taisuke, either the smell of alcohol or the fact he killed a person in front of his eyes. But the person was bad right? And the guard was thankful that Taisuke killed him...and he was causing Nora problems too. The two get out of the office.

"Alright, Kaworu is in vault 114 and the guy who can help find your family is there. Looks like this is going to be short unlike last time and me. I get shot in the head and get wrapped up in a war. That escalated REAL quickly." Taisuke chuckled remembering how his journey began as a courier. Walking towards the entrance is Asuka who is done shopping for parts to repair her power armor which hasn't been worn since at least like ten years. It broke during operation broken steel and she was armorless ever since, relying on her strength and speed also gun. Asuka spots Taisuke who's eyes widen then turn into anger.

"Oh great...mom." Taisuke insulted. Asuka was always an inconvenience to him, always begging him to go home and saying that there is always a place for him in vault 101 even though she doesn't live there anymore.

"Taisuke..." Asuka growled.

"Oh what? Another stern lecture from you? From the wise and great lone wanderer?" He sarcastically replied while rolling his eyes in disappointment knowing he has to see her again.

"Really? Ten years and this is what I get? You complaining?" Asuka growled remembering Taisuke never bothered to call her.

"Oh, you must've been destroying the enclave back at DC while I was in Vegas getting my head stitched up by doc Mitchell!" Taisuke replied in anger.

"So big wise sister decides to come into my shit hole of a life after ten years..." He ended. Asuka glares at Taisuke as she holds her anger and turns to Shinji.

"Have you found any leads to help you find your family?" Asuka asks.

"Kind of, a detective named Kaworu Nagisa." Shinji answered. Coming out of the publick occurances is Hikari Horaki who has a concerned look on her face.

"Excuse me, do you have a minute?" Hikari asks in worriment.

"Yes?" Shinji replied.

"I need you to pick up my dad in the dugout inn, reason being is because I'm...a little too busy in the publick even though I live there now." Hikari shrugged. Taisuke remembered Hikari's father, drunk son-of-a-bitch is his nickname and the two always got into fights and never got along at all.

"But-"Taisuke gets in the way.

"Sure, we'll get him for ya!" He addressed and turns to Shinji.

"Look Shinji, Hikari will pay us some caps and you need caps to survive around here in the wasteland. You got that? You can't stick to the old gauss rifle no matter what." Taisuke implored. Shinji tries to think about it...caps is the new money. He turns over Taisuke.

"Will you pay us?"

 _Asuka disliked that._

"Of course, 100 caps!" Hikari replied. Asuka crosses her arms and huffs at Shinji, first day in the wasteland and he's already acting like the scumbags she kills for a living. A list of scumbags she already lost count during those ten years she's been wandering.

Shinji nods and tries to walk away but stops realizing he doesn't know where the dugout inn. Taisuke smirks.

"Left to the butcher shop." He directed as Shinji makes a left. Taisuke turns to Asuka.

"We'll just wait here." Shinji walks past the butcher noticing the meat she has ranging from radroach, Brahmin, Deathclaw, and even bloodbug. Its creepy and disturbing at the same time. He resists the urge to throw up and continues walking ahead to the dugout inn, Shinji turns to the right to see bar and enters it. In front of him is a bar table and a bunch of people chatting around, the typical visitors like Hawthorne. Standing behind the counter is Vadim cleaning his glass causing Shinji to walk towards him.

"Excuse me, I'm here to pick up someone's dad...the girl from publick occurrences." Shinji explained.

"Who? Hikari's? He's over there." Vadim replied as Shinji turns to see a man drinking some bourbon and looks disheveled in many levels. Shinji walks towards him with the man drinking his beer.

"Excuse me...I was sent by your daughter to pick you up." Shinji informed. The man puts down his drink.

"Oh so my nosey bitch of a daughter decides to give a fuck? Fuck you then, I'll go home whenever I want..." The man drunkly growled. Shinji gulps trying to hold his anger in.

"Please, your daughter just wants you-" He gets up from his seat and drunkly swings his drink away then pulls out a pipe pistol on Shinji prompting him to freeze in shock. Hikari's dad drinks more bourbon.

"Hey, hey! This is not wasteland, this is bar! Take conflict out of here!" Vadim yelled.

"Look sir-" He shoots at Shinji but misses.

"Just leave me the fuck alone or I-" Shinji takes advantage of the situation and rifle butts the man in the head thus knocking him unconscious. Diamond city security enter the bar.

"Ah crap not again. Takeru Horaki, when are you going to learn?" Security sighed and turns to Shinji.

"Thanks for the help kid." The guards drag Takeru from the bar with Hikari coming in. Shinji braces himself for a word lashing since Hikari is now angry.

"Um...I'm sorry...?"

"No need to apologize Shinji, the man was always a drunk. Ever since mom died, he began drinking. It annoyed me to no end until Piper found me to support my sisters. You know...with all this adventuring your doing, I won't mind if you want me to tag along." Hikari smiled and paid Shinji. Entering the bar is Asuka in her T51 power armor and armed with a minigun with the ammo container on her back. She is wearing her helmet which covers her face.

"Well, the publick could always have a correspondent." Shinji sarcastically replied.

"Sorry if the caps weren't enough." Hikari apologized.

"Safety is above money so its okay." Shinji said.

 _Asuka liked that._

 _Taisuke disliked that._

Asuka smiles warmly. Shinji reminded her of herself when she got out of the vault, imperfect and tried her best to help people around and look what she did-she saved everyone from the tyranny of the enclave. Asuka walks up to Shinji.

"Now that you got your pay, you ready to move out now or want to profit more from people's misery?" Asuka asks.

"I'm ready." Shinji informed and looks at Asuka's gear.

"You seem ready to kill anything..." He observed.

"These triggermen maybe low-life scum or the equivalent to a bunch of punks compared to raiders, talon company, gunners, and synths." Asuka replied and moves a little to help with an itch on her. Shinji nods and walks with Asuka to the entrance of diamond city with Taisuke leaning on the rail and gets off. They head out of the city with security patrolling the area.

"Just a sec." Taisuke walks towards the power armor. X0-1 in particular with shark paint and red lenses to make him look scarier than ever and a laser gatling gun leaned on a table nearby. He installs the fusion core and enters inside it with the suit taking him in as he picks up the weapon nearby and loading his gun. Taisuke looks at the amount of cores on his gun to see its enough for him to increase the capacity of the gun to 500 all day. Good thing he modified the fusion core in his to a more unlimited source. Material made from the alien blaster ammo in particular which makes the suit run on it and never run out.

"Lets go." Taisuke said via microphone of the helmet. Shinji feels...a little weak compared to these two, Asuka has a lot of experience with the wasteland and Taisuke too while he only has a pistol and a gauss rifle that is soon running of ammo. The three walk to the left and pass by minutemen patrols while some are resting with there laser muskets nearby. Ruined buildings surround them as they slowly make there way into the open where minutemen scouts scour the place to help there cause, they call the place the dark zone. Places where the minutemen don't explore much of, some overtaken by raiders and super mutants. Shinji looks at his map to see they are heading towards a train station. They pass by Swan's pond also.

"Vault 114 was created underground by vault-tec, experiment was to take the elite and put them out of there comfort zone and be aligned with the middle class run by someone named soup-can Harry." Asuka informed.

"Soup-can Harry? That hobo that keeps asking me for food? Who would put him in charge?" Shinji asks remembering the hobo who kept bullying him and had to file a restraining order but since he doesn't believe in the government, kept continuing and resulted in Gendo aiming his gun at him.

"Its vault-tec, what do you expect? They're curious about EVERYTHING." Taisuke replied remembering all of the experiments they've done. Cold-hearted motherfuckers really. Hence the reason why he kind of hates scientists to some degree...except Curie who is like a mom to him. They spot the train station and go downstairs but Asuka signals to them to stop.

"Triggermen." Asuka spotted before whirling her minigun.

"I'll be glad to clean the commonwealth of this trash." Taisuke smirked underneath his armor. The two go down the elevator with both guns whirling, the triggermen hear the sound causing them to get up and pull out their tommy guns then aim at the two but are killed in a flurry of bullets which turns them into nothing but meat and fried flesh in the process while others are turned into dust.

"Hey Taisuke, who are the triggermen?" Shinji asks.

"Must is always be questions when you talk? Oh yeah, you're a pre-war relic, triggermen are what you pre-war people call gangsters and they're a bunch of jackasses." Taisuke explained and loads another core into his gun.

"Shinji, take point." Asuka ordered as Shinji goes downstairs to more triggermen opening fire at him but he quickly runs downstairs by making himself fall on the ground and drops his gun but gets up and takes cover. Shinji stands up from cover and fires his gauss rifle at them which hits the triggerman in front of him and sends him flying due to the force. Another triggerman switches to his 10mm pistol prompting Shinji to get out of the way of his line of fire and shoot him in the armpit where the rounds whizzes through him and out of right shoulder which leaves it blown off thus killing him. More of the triggermen open fire at Asuka but she throws a plasma grenade at them which explodes on impact.

Shinji looks at the map on his pip-boy to see that they are near the vault.

"Keep going!" Shinji yelled and led the way. Asuka and Taisuke look at each other and shrug while holding there weapons, they walk towards the tunnel leading to vault 114. A batch of triggermen runs towards them with Shinji running towards them and slides to cover with Asuka and Taisuke firing there weapons causing the triggermen to take cover against the destroyed trains. Shinji musters his courage up and peers out of cover and opens fire at the triggermen but misses. Taisuke looks at Shinji and comes up with an idea.

"Suppressing!" Taisuke roared and continued to rain fire upon the triggermen while activating his VATS and firing at the triggermen but they take cover. Shinji crouches and flanks the triggermen. Shinji crouches and tries to sneak up to the triggerman but he trips on something causing him to fall on the ground making noise getting a triggerman's attention. Shinji gets up in his dirty vault suit and pulls out his pistol and shoots the triggerman in the head. The shot causes the triggerman to raise his head where the bullet wound is and he drops dead. Another triggerman notices Shinji but Shinji gets out of the way and picks up his now dirty gauss rifle and shoots the triggerman in the chest which kills the gangster. Two other triggermen up front turn around but they are easily gunned down by Taisuke and Asuka.

"Good work Shinji, you're lookin to be a real natural." Asuka complemented. The three continue walking down the tunnel and reach the end, to the left is a large vault entrance labeled 114 which indicates that they are in the right place. Shinji walks up to the console of the vault and releases the power cord from his pipboy and installs it on the controls. The system identifies Shinji as another vault dweller prompting the vault door to open up.

"Hey Al-what the-" The triggerman is shot to death by Asuka's minigun while his friend is killed by Taisuke who shoots him in the head with his laser gatling gun which reduces him into ashes. Shinji leads the way again and makes a left since his pipboy's radar reads that the objective is very close. They make it into the cafeteria of the vault and head upstairs to where the triggermen are keeping Kaworu. Shinji takes a stair and makes a left to show reveal a triggerman guarding Kaworu behind his makeshift cell which is the overseer's office.

"Hey Kaworu, not so tough behind that cell huh?" The triggerman insulted.

"Good cause I can just break the window and grab you." Kaworu replied and took a smoke. His skin is dark pale and he has glowing yellow eyes alongside ripped skin on his cheek revealing the exposed mechanical parts behind his skin showing he's not human at all. He is also wearing a tan dirty trench coat and tan hat.

"Wait...you can do that?" Marlo replied.

"Of course! I'm a synth, a robot." Kaworu bragged.

"Oh yeah? Try!" The triggerman instigated.

"I would but I don't want to confuse the people who are trying to rescue me and accidentally shooting me in the process in our struggle." Kaworu replied. Marlo turns around and is shot by Shinji. Shinji gets on the terminal and starts hacking it by removing the duds to help him open the door. The door opens as Kaworu sighs. Shinji looks a little shocked to see the synth.

"What...what are you?" Shinji shuddered at the sight of Kaworu.

"I'm a synth, you of all people should know...oh wait, another vault dweller?" Kaworu asks before taking a smoke.

"Kind of, I need your help in finding my family." Shinji replied.

"Well, your family can wait since we need to get out of here. Got captured after I received a tip that the daughter of a high ranking minutemen officer was kidnapped and brought here but it turned out to be another trap set up by Darla, Skinny Malone's old flame." The synth explained. Shinji nods and gets out of the room.

"Kaworu maybe new around here but don't underestimate him, he can blow your head off if he wanted to." Taisuke commented and reloads his laser gatling gun. The four head downstairs and back to the vault entrance...only for Darla and her crew of triggermen surrounding them.

"Well, well, I shouldn't be surprised you got out Kaworu." Darla taunted and looks at Asuka, Taisuke and Shinji but since there's a horde of triggermen outside of the vault, there's nothing standing in their way.

"I would've gotten out either way, punched the window then take out your guy. Good thing this kid got me out." Kaworu replied.

"Obviously but I suggest you should give up ya little escape. I got men surrounding the station as it is." Darla bragged. Shinji tries to come up with something or they'll get surrounded by her goons.

"Darla, you don't want to do this. Kaworu here is the key to saving...the commonwealth." Shinji lied causing Asuka to look at him angrily.

 _Asuka disliked that._

 _Taisuke liked that._

"Way to be dramatic now put your gauss rifle down and join him in his cell." Darla ordered. Shinji wasn't always the people person, the fact he failed to convince Darla to stand down was a proof. Asuka whirls her minigun alongside Taisuke with Kaworu loading his fiery laser pistol.

"Look, we'll never come back, okay?" Shinji tries.

"Sorry, Kaworu here owes me a lot and he ain't living so will you and your friends." Drala boasted. Little does she know, the triggermen outside of the vault are being slaughtered by something...or someone. A triggerman turns around aims his tommy gun but he is shot in the head by a silenced weapon. The triggermen in the vault entrance are being killed one by one.

"Now, any last words?" Darla asks.

"Please..." Shinji begged, of all the ways he'll die, he wishes it would be seeing his family again.

"I'm going to fucking destroy you all." Taisuke grinned underneath his helmet.

"Bring it on!" Asuka yelled. Darla moves straight towards Shinji...only to be shot in the head by an unknown force. The triggermen turn around but are shot in the head by something. The figure decloaks to reveal a woman wearing a Chinese stealth suit and armed with a suppressed assault rifle. She looks friendly so Shinji walks up to her.

"Ahem." Shinji greeted.

"Move." She ordered in an altered voice. Shinji simply nods and leads the group out of the vault and into the surface. Kaworu breathes the smell of the commonwealth which consists of death and destruction followed by gun power, may not be the best smell in the world but sure as hell beats being in that stupid vault. He turns around to them.

"Alright kid, we'll talk in Diamond city since I need to validate this case." Kaworu said and walks away. Shinji, Asuka, and Taisuke look at each other then nod at Kaworu.

* * *

Diamond city.

Shinji and Asuka arrive back at Diamond city while Taisuke parking his power armor nearby. Shinji is starting to get numb to this violence but he's still sloppy regardless which makes him still weak. His stomach doesn't feel so good...maybe its because he killed those people with such ferocity but regardless, he feels he's on something. Someone who can help him find his family. Its night now and there's barely anyone in the streets

"I have to hand it to you, you got better but still sloppy." Asuka smirked and walked ahead. The two make it to Nagisa agencies and open the door to reveal Kaworu sitting on his chair with his desk in front of him.

"Alright kid, lets introduce ourselves. The name's Kaworu Nagisa, quite sure Taisuke introduced me to you when I was off." Kaworu introduced himself. Shinj sits in front of Kaworu.

"Shinji Ikari, I'm looking for my family. They were kidnapped by the institute when I was cryogenically frozen so please get to the point." Shinji rushed.

"Calm, calm down. So the institute huh? Who were the assailants?" Kaworu asks.

"X6-88 and a guy named Kellogg but he was killed by the general of the minutemen." Shinji replied.

"Hm...he's a synth courser, X6, he can appear anywhere and anytime through. So we need something that help us get his attention...I don't know if institute synths have some kind distress signal in case things go astray...I'll need a day, just one day, to contact a friend of mine in the memory den. She has friends in the railroad which means they can help us. Can't just contact the railroad though, they're secretive as hell." Kaworu replied.

"S-Sure..." Shinji stammered.

"And also patch yourself up, you look quite nervous." He ended. Shinji gets up and walks out of the office with Asuka.

"Welp, I'm tired...how about you?" Asuka asks.

"I'm kind of tired too...and hungry." Shinji replied while his stomach grumbles.

"I think the house has some Salisbury steak and cooked mirelurk meat." Asuka and Shinji walk towards there home with Asuka opening the door first then the fridge. She gets her meal and tosses the canned mirelurk meat towards Shinji who barely catches it doesn't spill. Asuka throws herself on the couch and turns on the TV then picks up a combat knife to open her canned meal of Salisbury steak while passing the knife to Shinji who opens the can of mirelurk meat which is cooked, he was expecting it to look disgusting but in reality it looks like mash potato, chunky mash potato in fact. Asuka gives him a plastic spoon and gives on for herself while Shinji eats the food knowing its the only one he has...it tastes good. It takes like pork mixed with salad. Very crunchy and meaty in fact.

The TV flashes to reveal an episode or at least a re-run of Grognak the barbarian since the series is over now. Asuka heard this over her radio back at vault 101 and listened each time an episode was on.

"I saw this episode once, didn't have much time to see the rest." Asuka observed while eating her meal.

"I heard one the scenes was improvised, don't know which one though." Shinji replied. The scene comes up.

"Yeah, I think that's the one...yep, that's the scene." The two continue to watch episode and end up finishing there meals. Asuka throws hers into the trash can while Shinji does the same.

"Well, goodnight." Asuka said and goes her bed underneath Shinji's which is upstairs. Shinji goes upstairs and lays on his bed while Asuka shuts off the lights. Shinji wonders what happened to his family...was Misato right? Were they really killed by the institute? What would he do if they did? Questions flow into his mind while coming up with different possibilities...

"You thinking about them?" Shinji peers over his bed to see Asuka beneath him.

"I...I guess so..."

"Not surprised, that was my initial reaction to sleeping out here in the wasteland. Thoughts ever since I left vault 101...wondering if my dad was still out there in the wasteland...wondering why did he leave...wondering what will become of the home I was raised in." Asuka turns over to the side of her bed.

"My other question was answered, the new overseer was insane and I had to kill him."

"Asuka...why do you continue to fight? Why are you here in the Commonwealth?" Shinji asks.

"...Stupid Shinji, that's a question for another time...after we get X6..." Asuka drifts into sleep while Shinji does the same.

* * *

Cambridge.

"Again." Danse ordered. Scribe Amano powers up the radio after they installed the signal drive into the radio, its a good thing they got paladin Danse back into the brotherhood and he's already honored to be among them again. The radio activates prompting Touji to get on the mic.

"Recon team Hera to Prydwen, we have found evidence of institute resurgence in the commonwealth, please respond, over." Touji said on the mic. Static is heard on the radio...

"Prydwen to recon team Hera, we read you loud and clear. Please wait for brotherhood arrival, we are almost there to your location and we'll be there tomorrow. Sit tight." Captain Kells replied on the radio. Danse goes into the commissioners office and rests against the wall with his laser musket leaning on the desk. One month and now he's back on the brotherhood of steel...but Arthur dying hit him worst than he ever felt. Sure Arthur exiled him but regardless, he's still brotherhood, heart and mind, like all other members, he mourns for the loss of his brother. Arthur Maxson.

"So what is this new elder like?" Danse asks which gets Touji, Amano, and Mayumi's attention.

"She brought the brotherhood back from near-destruction that's what. Introduced us to new tech and vehicles besides a vertibird which made the brotherhood stronger than ever. We owe her our lives." Touji replied.

"Then how did you get ghouls and synths into the brotherhood? Isn't that against our ways?"

"The Midwest brotherhood doesn't follow our ways and that's good, they've created a special form of rad-x mixed with rad-away that keeps ghouls from turning feral and disabled the codes inside the synth members to keep them from rejoining the institute thus making them viable for brotherhood without any risks." Touji continued.

"That's...impressive!" Danse awed at the thought. This one elder changed everything.

"It is indeed, elder Makinami told us to tolerate others-human or not, as long as they aren't attacking you or killed one of your brothers and sisters for the crimes of others don't apply to the rest." Touji smiled while Mayumi heads outside and activates the turrets and mines in the area that are planted next to cars.

"Well, its good to see the brotherhood more powerful than ever. Ad victorium and goodnight." Dasne closes his eyes while Touji gets out of his power armor to sleep on his sleeping bag.

* * *

"Oh shit, oh shit!" A talon company merc yelled as he is gunned ruthlessly by a brotherhood knight in his power armor. He is inside a wrecked apartment and walks upstairs to overlook the battle going on. Overlooking is a field of brotherhood tanks, APC's, and jeeps with mounted machine guns moving slowly and firing there machine guns at the mercenaries with armored brotherhood soldiers walking beside them and firing their laser rifles while walking. An intel leak told them that talon company is rounding up civilians under orders of the institute in the border of Washington.

All around the field is talon company mercenaries running away or surrendering as they are bombarded by tank shells, missiles, laser fire, and many more from the brotherhood vehicles and soldiers. Most of them are pretty much dying. A mercenary frantically fires his laser rifle but it rounds out of ammo and he looks at it then drops the weapon and runs away. Talon company soldiers are heading towards the ammo depot since the place that is being overrun by brotherhood forces was a military base but brotherhood soldiers wearing T45 power armor and armed with laser rifles rapple down from a vertibird and open fire at the mercenaries. The remaining talon company mercs surrender while the rest are either dead or captured.

A vertibird lands on the helipad with Mari getting out of it. More vertibirds land to reveal medical units in them, they get out with medical supplies and rush to set up relief shelters. A brotherhood knight inside the base opens a base garage...only for a pile of dead bodies to pour in with starved out people behind them much to his shock.

"Mame, we have civilians!" The knight yelled.

"I know. All medics rush inside the garage while scouts open more bases to find more civilians and escort them to relief groups!" Medics rush left and right with Mari walking...little does she know, the talon company general is hiding beneath a jeep. He crawls out of the jeep but Mari makes a slight turn. She pulls out her pistol, path of the righteous, and shoots him, the shot blows his arm and leg off causing him to fall on the ground. He crawls towards escape but bleeds out.

"I want soldiers patrolling exterior of the base and the interior too, capture or kill any merc that tries to kill you! These sick bastards will be brought to justice!" Mari yelled. Next to her is knight Rhys who activates a megaphone.

"To all talon company forces still hiding within the walls of this base! The brotherhood will be lenient to those who surrender and supply us with valuable intel! Fighting us will make your situation worse than ever! Do not resist!" Knight Rhys yelled on his megaphone.

"I say again, we will be lenient but only if you surrender peacefully and relinquish your tech so we can help these people you've captured! There will be no second chances! This is not an option! Surrender or you will be fired upon!" Rhys warned and deactivates his megaphone.

"We'll resupply here and head out tomorrow." Mari notified as Rhys nodded. She walks among the people who are being helped by the brotherhood, a ghoul who is put on a stretcher and is injected by the serum to keep him from turning feral since he was starved. Mari gets on the vertibird nearby and it flies off back to the Prydwen.


	7. The hunt

Taisuke finds himself...again, in New Vegas. The bustling city and lights, the sounds of people being people and even better-his friends, Raul, Veronica, Boone, Cass, Rex, ED-E, Lily, and Arcade. All having a blast. Veronica looking at the dresses in the store, Boone just leaning against a lamp post talking to the local NCR soldiers, Cass enjoying a beer, Rex playing with him, Lily talking to her grandchildren, and Arcade having a simple sip of tea.

He walks in the streets smiling for the accomplishments he's done. Ending , making the legion leave Hoover dam and everything else. Its all perfect. NCR soldiers living in peace alongside super mutants and ghouls from Jacobstown and the legion too. All is right with the world. Cass walks up to him with a vodka in hand and pulls him closer.

"So...why did you let us die?" She asks. The whole city is set on fire around him, synths flooding the city and NCR troopers slaughtered left and right alongside the legion...its the end of the world all over again and he is in the center of town. Taisuke changes to his combat rifle and starts firing at the synths but they just keep coming. An explosion knocks him down on the ground which renders him unable to walk but Cass drags him away from the madness. He continues shooting his combat rifle at the synths but the shots are just injuring them.

He looks over to the left and sees Boone trying his best to fend off the synths with his sniper rifle but a courser decloaks and stabs him in the back causing Boone to kneel. The courser takes aim at Boone's head and kills him immediately. Veronica attempts to punch a synth with her power first but she is overwhelmed by synths and vanishes amongst the crowed. Lily uses her vertibird weapon and swings it at the synths which destroys a large horde of them in the process but she is killed in a barrage of laser fire. Rex runs towards Taisuke and bites off a synth's arm off but the synth uses its pistol to shoot Rex which kills him. ED-E fires its laser gun but a synth with a rocket launcher fires at the robot and destroys it. Gannon is seen tending a civilian's wounds but a synth shoots him in the back as more synths kill the civilians.

"No...no...NO!" Taisuke cried as all of New Vegas is burned. Suddenly, he opens his eyes real quickly and wakes up in cold sweat and gets up. He looks around and sighs, another nightmare. He should be numb to this at this point. His house used to be doctor Crocker's house but since he was killed by Nora, it was given to him under Nora's payment from the minutemen. He hears a knock on the door and goes downstairs to open the door, Taisuke opens the door to reveal Kaworu Nagisa.

"My friend from the railroad is here, Glory. I've arranged a meeting outside of the dugout inn." Kaworu informed with him noticing Taisuke looking like trash.

"You were drinking last night?" The detective asks.

"Yeah of course, must've been a lot of bourbon." Taisuke bragged and yawned.

"Nick told me you've been destroying yourself, I think you should lay off the drinks." Kaworu sighed.

"I'll stop drinking when the institute burns to the ground like last time." Taisuke simply stated. Kaworu rolls his eyes and walks away as Taisuke closes the door. Diamond city is waking up right now, Moe Cronan is walking to his shop, Arturo setting up the guns to show what he's selling, Myrna replacing Percy, Polly sharpening her knives, Solomon setting his chems on display, doctor Sun cleaning needles, and Takahashi still doing the same thing which is cooking noodles.

* * *

Shinji finds himself in the backyard of his old house, joined by him is Nora and Nate, his mother and father and his baby sister playing with Shaun. Asuka is with her family and Taisuke prepping there things since they just moved in...its all perfect...he hears sirens now and turns around to see missiles hitting in the distance causing his eyes to widen.

He wakes up on his bed while panting heavily. Asuka is still sleeping beneath him.

* * *

Asuka finds herself waking up on her bed in vault 101...smiling in a faded light is her father, James Langley Soryu. His eyes are covered by a shadow made from his hair.

"...Run my child." The place changes to the purifier much to her terror causing her to rise up in horror to find herself still in her room while clutching her heart. Asuka looks up to see Shinji walking downstairs. In his vault suit. Asuka motions her legs to get up from the bed as she yawns.

"Wakey, wakey rookie. Lets get to work but first, some breakfast." Asuka notified and walks outside the house. Shinji walks second and yawns, his body feels a little worn out after what happened. Asuka is sitting in front of Takahashi eating a bowel of noodles with Piper nearby, Shinji joins in.

"I would like to have some noodles." Shinji requested.

"Nani shi maska?" The protectron asks. Shinji raises his eyebrow knowing that he is saying what is

"Noodles?"

"Nani shi maska?" It repeats again.

"Just say yes." Asuka advised.

"Yes...?" Takahashi bakes some noodles and gives them to Shinji who eats them in response. The noodle tastes a little bit like pork but its okay, Kaworu walks in on the two and sits beside them. Shinji turns to the synth.

"Alright, my friend Glory from the railroad is here. Meet me at the outside of the dugout inn." Kaworu informed. Asuka and Shinji finish their noodles and get up. Shinji is starting to get used to the smell of diamond city and the butcher shop too. They spot Taisuke sitting on a seat with Kaworu and a black woman with silver hair and wearing a somewhat bulky outfit.

"Have a seat." Taisuke said and drank some beer and ate some steak. Asuka sighs in disappointment since Taisuke is drinking some bourbon in the morning, too early for alcohol. Shinji and Asuka take a seat.

"Wait...what's the railroad?" Shinji asks since he forgot to ask questions about this organization.

"We're an organization dedicated to liberating synths and giving them a new life outside of the institute. So far, business has been slow but after the battle of New Vegas, we're on high alert for any institute resurgence. Heck, we gave intel to the brotherhood of steel which led to them backing us up. We check out upcoming synth members and give them a special upgrade to make sure they aren't taken away by the institute." Glory explained.

"Now lets get to the point, coursers are attracted to emergency signals relayed by another courser. X6 is the leader and mainly responds to the emergency distress calls. You need to find a courser and I know how. I'm just here to say, witches get hung." The synth gets up and leaves with Asuka being confused by the last phrase alongside Taisuke and Shinji.

"Its a code for their location and I know where it is-the museum of witchcraft. I guess they cleared house after Nora destroyed the institute to a place more outskirt." Kaworu explained. Taisuke finishes his steak.

"Welp I'm full, thank you white glove society for that meat..." Taisuke sighed as Asuka's eyes widen.

"...You do realize what that meat is...right?" Asuka asks.

"Don't worry, I convinced the white glove society not to eat people anymore, this is Brahmin steak and its my favorite. Managed to horde all of their food before New Vegas burned." Taisuke explained.

"Are you sure...does it taste like sweet pork?" Asuka remembered having dinner

"No, it takes like Brahmin." The courier grimaced. Asuka rolls her eyes and gets up to grab her weapons back at her house.

"Hey stupid Shinji, get some supplies at Arturo's. You're running out of ammo." Asuka advised. Shinji nods and gets up while Taisuke goes back him to get his stuff. Shinji stops in front of Aturo.

"A shotgun is good for keeping raiders away unless you want something bigger." The man informed.

"I'm here to get more ammo for my gauss rifle..." Shinji replied. He pulls out the weapon holstered on his back and places it on the table, Arturo whistles at the sight of the gun.

"Well, that's a...very unique model of the gauss rifle. The ones I have for ammo are the railgun variant...hm, I think I have rounds out back. Let me see." Arturo turns around walks inside his shop to see if he has any of the ammo. Shinji turns around to see a woman with a scarf hoodie, brown short hair, sleeveless duster, jeans and what appears to be a power fist on her hand talking with Moe Cronan. Arturo comes back with the ammo inside a dusty box as he blows it all away.

"Alright, ammo for your gauss rifle! That will be...70778 caps." Shinji almost screams, is that how valuable the rounds are!? He shouldn't be surprised though, his model of the gauss rifle is very rare in the commonwealth.

"Um...oh boy..." Shinji adjusts the collar of his vault suit. Walking behind him is Nora Morgan who pulls out a caps stash and places it on the table. He turns to his godmother.

"Oh thanks Nora..." The boy thanked.

"Don't expect that again, alright? I won't be there to help you all the time." Nora walks away as Piper is outside in her bathrobe drinking some coffee. Coming out of the house is Nat and Shaun or at least, synth Shaun. Shinji has to admit, they make a cute family. Shinji stories the ammo into his inventory. Taisuke walks out of his house with the ranger Sequoia revolver on his hand and Cass's old shotgun holstered on his back. Asuka gets out armed with her typical Xuan Long assault rifle and 10mm pistol, this will be a long walk to the museum of witchcraft so its best to wield light weapons.

"Alright, everyone ready?" Asuka asks.

"Yep! Ready to move out." Taisuke replied as he looks at his inventory on his pipboy which all consist of stimpacks, and nuka-cola quantum's he stole from the nuka cola factory back at New Vegas before the institute burned the place down.

"This will be a long one so just pray we don't shot up along the way and remember: Anyone and anything is a living ammo container." Asuka leads the way with Taisuke and Shinji following her.

* * *

 _Civilization-Danny Kaye and the Andrews Sisters._

Asuka, Shinji, and Taisuke walk in the roads of old Boston as Taisuke drinks some nuka cola while walking with the two. Shinji is reading the direction of his map on his pipboy with Asuka picking up a pipe pistol and throws it away since its junk to her, nothing important really and pipe weapons tend to break sometimes or fall apart on hands.

* * *

Asuka and Shinji wait while leaning against a wall as Taisuke asks a raider for directions, the raider is a friend of his. The raider signals him to go down street and once he sees the bridge, he's out of the city. Taisuke thanks the raider as he turns to his friends.

* * *

Asuka asks for directions to a group of gunners as the gunner leader, Tessa, points her direction to another path on the road. Clint tells Asuka to make a left and avoid a couple of Deathclaws along the way. Asuka thanks them but Tessa makes an ahem and extends her hand out for payment or they die. The redhead signals Tessa to wait and reaches for her inventory...and pulls out a .44 magnum and shoots Tessa in the face alongside Clint since Preston put a bounty on their heads. Asuka turns around to see Preston Garvey with Shinji and Taisuke. Preston gives Asuka some caps and leaves.

* * *

Shinji bakes a mirelurk cake as Taisuke rips its flesh out of the poor creature that attacked them. They're sharing stories, post-war and pre-war with the two siblings listening in awe at what pre-war life was like. Shinji tells a story how ice hockey involved a puck not killing people much to Taisuke's shock, he regrets not telling the ice gang and about Elvis Presley which to Taisuke's shock again, wasn't a deity.

* * *

A deathclaw squints its eyes at Shinji's pipboy since they took the wrong turn. Shinji is close to peeing himself at the sight of the creature but Taisuke recognizes that its the same one Nora gave the egg back to. The deathclaw stands up and aims its claws left as Shinji nods in fear and the three go onto their merry ways.

* * *

"This is the place." Asuka observed the museum of witchcraft since Taisuke remembered that the door is unlocked prompting the group to enter it in the process. No one is there much to their shock...and anger.

"Oh you got to be fucking kidding me!? Just a bunch of hanging mannequins! Dammit Glory!" Taisuke cursed and kicks a cracked deathclaw egg knowing that Nora killed the mother in the process when she was here. Asuka sighed and opens the door with Shinji coming second. In front of them is a man wearing a white shirt and tan pants alongside black hair and black shades.

"You are?" Shinji asks the man.

"The name's Deacon and sorry guys, the new railroad HQ is in Longneck Lakowski's or formerly Longneck Lakowski's. Follow me." The group follows Deacon as there is grumbles and complaints that they have to walk again. Luckily, Longneck Lakowski's is nearby. Deacon opens the door...only for a laser gun to be pointed at his face, the gun belongs to Glory.

"Traitor!" Asuka yelled and aimed her Xuan Long assault rifle with Taisuke aiming his holo-rifle at the synth.

"Wait, Asuka, Taisuke, Shinji? Oh, sorry about that. Little jumpy after what happened." Glory apologized.

"What happened?" Shinji asks.

"A team of coursers tried to infiltrate the museum and we evacuated with everything. I killed them all so no witnesses." Glory replied.

"So...about that device." Shinji said. The group goes downstairs to reveal a large capacity of railroad agents working around the clock with the units stationed in the factory. They're still setting up shop hence why it looks incomplete. On a workbench is Tinker Tom inventing his latest contraption. Shinji walks towards him.

"Ahem-"

"Desdomona?! I swear this isn't-oh, you're the vault dweller." The inventor observed.

"You said you have something for us?" Shinji replied.

"I said? Oh...never mind, anyway, here it is!" Tinker Tom pulls out a device similar to a haptic drive.

"Install this into your pipboy, it will help you track a courser signal. Normal ones tend to go and hunt alone. X6 is their leader and high ranking coursers have teams with them in case things go haywire and stuff." He explained.

"Thanks." Shinji thanked. Taisuke loads his combat rifle with Asuka doing the same. Overlooking the group inside the boss's office and the railroad agents setting up the things is Desdemona as she spots Shinji and the group. She gets out of the office and heads downstairs.

"Oh boy..." Taisuke sighed remembering the leader of the railroad, she got him in trouble once and it didn't end well. The railroad has changed after the institute was destroyed, they're borderline terrorists now in his eyes. Taisuke grabs Shinji by the shoulder.

"Look, be careful with these guys, last time I received a job offer, it was a mission to kill a brotherhood soldier which I refused." The courier advised. Shinji turns to Desdemona.

"You must be Shinji Ikari, right? Nora told me about you when she stopped by here. I have a question for you: How far are you willing to go to save someone?" Desdemona asks.

"Why are you asking me this?" Shinji replied.

"To see if you're a decent person after all. The wasteland has destroyed more people than you ever can imagine and Nora is one of the few." Desdemona replied. Asuka curls her hand into a fist alongside Taisuke. How dare this bitch say that they're bad people!? Sure Taisuke agrees that he's a bad person but he's not a murderer so is Asuka!

"...I'll do anything to find my family or at least what happened to them." Shinji answered before leaving. Taisuke turns to Desdemona.

"Look, I know what you're doing. You're trying to make him convert to the railroad, cute, very cute but you'll only lead him to trouble like what you did to me." Taisuke growled at the leader of the railroad.

"Or so you say."

"I say because last time you gave me a job to rig the brotherhood of steel recon team's ammunition supply to blow up. So stay away from Shinji, you goddamn terrorist-" Asuka pulls Taisuke back and gives an apologetic look at Desdemona then glares at Taisuke as she pushes him against a generator.

"Careful with the rads-"

"What the hell do you think you're doing!? You have something against the railroad or something?" Asuka asks.

"Yes I do, unlike you who just came to the commonwealth, I know the railroad. They've been acting like radicals for the past few weeks and something isn't right. I'm making sure Shinji doesn't fall into their banner." Taisuke replied.

"So you're thinking like the brotherhood. Surprised you didn't join." Asuka replied.

"I'm just saying, these people are slowly becoming more and more...different than before. They're the friends of the synths and they're right but at the same time, their disregarding humans and lives too. If Shinji joins, I'm afraid one day you and him will meet this time with guns aimed at her each other and him spouting anti-human bullshit. Hell, even Glory is seeing this alongside Deacon." The courier stated.

"Seeing how you act-I can't tell if I should trust you." Asuka glared. The two head upstairs with Shinji leaning against the door and listening to crazy in love on his pipboy radio then changing it to the molecular tracker.

"Say, Taisuke, where coursers teleport in anyway?" Shinji asks.

"Dunno, from what I've heard, the signals come from the sewers." Taisuke replied. The three head outside of the factory and sigh and try to walk back to diamond city and it will be a long road ahead. Raider's are still running around and stuff but they're disorganized and demoralized after the minutemen began to gain influence.

"So, about the museum of witchcraft...there was magic back then?" Asuka asks remembering the Krivbeknih. A terrible book that she gladly destroyed back at DC.

"No, the museum was made for commemorating the victims of the Salem witch trials."

"So there was magic." The redhead replied.

"Are you guys talking about magic? Of course it did exist back then, I read Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Jeez the pre-war world was messed up." Taisuke whistled at the thought.

"No, there was no magic during pre-war. The witch trials were trials where people were accused of witchcraft and were sentenced to death for it." Shinji explained.

"...Were they in possession of a book?" Asuka asks.

"No. They were just innocent people." Shinji answered.

"Man, pre-war people were dicks...and also stupid." Taisuke commented while they continue to walk down the road. The thought people can fall for a trick like that is astonishing for him.

"They weren't pre-war-well, technically they were so...there pre-pre-pre-pre war people?" Shinji tries to explain but it sounds stupid already and giving them the impression of what pre-war life was like. The only pre-war knowledge Asuka knows is the invasion of Anchorage by the Chinese and that was used because the brotherhood outcasts wanted the tech inside. Anchorage was a rather interesting experience...next to mothership Zeta.

"Were they aliens?" Asuka asks.

"Where are you getting these guesses from?" Shinji grimaced.

"Nothing..."

* * *

Shinji, Asuka, and Taisuke enter Diamond city again. Its starting to get dark now after all that walking back here though Shinji doesn't feel tired, he wants to keep going and track a synth courser down and lead X6-88 into their little trap. But still...he wonders what Taisuke and Asuka want to gain off of this? Are they his guardian angels? Or do they want to be paid? Asuka yawns.

"If you need me, I'll be at our home." Asuka leaves to the home plate where a XO-1 power armor is parked outside of the house. Shinji feels a little hungry and looks around, the place he can only eat is at Takahashi's but he'll get tired of eating noodles all day.

"Is there anything to eat besides the robot's?" Shinji asks.

"Well, there's the dugout inn where they sell beer but some food but you're too goody too shoes for that...unless..." Taisuke tries to think of an alternate place.

"I'll pick the dugout inn." Shinji replied reluctantly.

"You sure? There's shady figures in there, especially deals Vadim made and owed like last time." Taisuke worried.

"I can handle it, I survived a mutated dinosaur thing after all..." Shinji bragged.

"...Are you talking about a deathclaw or a gecko?" Taisuke asks. Shinji looks down and sighs, he's still trying to get in the hang of the wasteland terms. The courier smiles and shakes his head. The two head towards the dugout inn and enter the bar right before sitting in front of the table. Vadim cleans the drinking glass and turns to Taisuke ad Shinji.

"Oh, Taisuke and Shinji. What should I get you two?" The Russian asks.

"I'll get the Bourbov special and Shinji?" Taisuke turns to him. Shinji is looking at the menu, all beer and Brahmin steak...also iguana bits which disgusts him a little. He sighs reluctantly.

"I'll get the Brahmin steak...?" Shinji ordered.

"Sure thing." Vadmin gives Taisuke the Bourbov special and prepares to cook the Brahmin steak since the minutemen gave him a kitchen and prepares the Brahmin steak. Shinji turns to Taisuke while he drinks his beer.

"So..." He tries to think of something say.

"So?" Taisuke replied.

"I want to know...what are you and Asuka trying to gain by helping me?" Shinji asks. Which causes Taisuke to put down his beer bottle as the bottom cracks a little and looks at Shinji.

"Wait, I didn't mean to ask-"

"NCR soldiers...often come back to a place thought to be non-existent. Tales of riches and fortune. It was called...New Vegas. There was a courier who tried to deliver a package but the package was intercepted by a mobster named Benny. He was shot and left for dead. He was found by a certain doctor who revived him and he went out to find the package and take revenge on Benny. He found Benny with the help of a caravaner and an eyebot that shot lasers from his eyes. They took him down. But that wasn't the for the courier, no sir it wasn't, the courier found himself in a conflict between the NCR, Legion, and the ruler of New Vegas himself, . So the courier was given a side to choose...it was the NCR. It turns out the package the courier was keeping was a chip that can hack the securitrons that patrol the streets of New Vegas. Soon afterwards, the legion attacked Hoover dam and the courier fought bravely with the NCR gaining the brotherhood of steel's support. Soon, the dam was taken and the NCR reigned supreme." Taisuke drinks his beer again and sighs.

"But that didn't end the story of the courier for he had adventures no man can imagine. He made friends with a nightkin, an NCR sniper, a brotherhood of steel scavenger, a cyborg dog, a Mexican ghoul, an alcoholic caravaner and many others...even an old friend who he considered a father that tried to destroy the NCR via nukes. The courier was a legend...until now. New Vegas and the NCR was facing a threat that was unreal, the Institute. When Nora destroyed the place, the Institute had a Nevada branch. NCR, brotherhood of steel Mojave, Boomers, great Kahns, and every other faction knew even the Legion that this Institute is a threat to humanity really. So an alliance was forged to defend Hoover dam...but the institute was too great and so the alliance defended New Vegas till the bitter end. You should've seen it, there was fighting in the streets and pockets of resistance helping out the alliance. But then...it was too late. The courier saw his friend die in front of him at the hands of the synth coursers and institute forces...and the caravaner and him were taken to be experimented on by them. Joined with the two is the lone wanderer and the warrior who would later become the elder of the brotherhood of steel. One by one, they saw the warrior's comrades die in front of them...and they were next. Rigorous experiments were conducted until the warrior and the courier decided it was enough and shot up the place. The courier joined the reborn brotherhood of steel to destroy this branch but knew it was the equivalent to destroying a stick. He saved New Vegas...but it wasn't itself, New Vegas became a giant concentration camp. The elder and the courier, sought revenge against the institute and mounted an assault and destroyed the Nevada branch. The courier then left the Mojave and headed up North, to destroy the Institute once and for all. And so continues the courier's journey, blood was spilled like the old days because war...war never changes." Taisuke ended and turns to Shinij.

"The Institute...they took everything from me. Tried to do their worse and make me into another Kellogg alongside my sister. A sister who I never forgave and hated myself for never forgiving her since she wanted my mom and I to stay in an already doomed vault who's number was 101."

"Taisuke..." Shinji muttered. Taisuke was a hero...a person who saved the Mojave but saw his home torn down by the Institute.

"Do you know why Auska is here in Boston?"

"Probably trying to find Doctor Li, she liked the woman as a mother. I saw her pictures she took, she kissed Li in the cheek while she working." Taisuke explained and drank again.

"Dunno why though, probably to run away...like me. I swore when then the Institute burns, I'll give up drinking." The meal arrives in front of Shinji as he eats it. The two are silent as Shinji knew that Taisuke doesn't want to talk anymore. Soon the Brahmin meat turned into nothing but bones and its up to Shinji to go home.

"See you around Shinji." Taisuke sadly said. Shinji walks back to the home plate which is his home and heads upstairs to sleep on his bed, Asuka is in the bottom sleeping peacefully. Shinji lays on his bed thinking of Taisuke's past and his own...he fears that he'll turn into him. His entire family is gone, the world around him is all blown up to hell...is it possible to find them here? What if they went somewhere else? He drifts into sleep.

* * *

A beep on his pipboy is heard which Shinji wakes up at...something isn't right. The beep is on his radio which helps track a synth courser signal and its beeping erratically. Shinji gets up on his bed and activates his pipboy flashlight, he looks down to see Asuka still sleeping. He goes downstairs and picks up a handgun Asuka placed on the table, he turns to Asuka to wake her up and finds out she's awake.

"Keep moving." Asuka whispered in order to get the jump on the intruder. Shinji shines his pipboy light at every corner of the room but nothing is there. He realizes that his movement is causing small noises and even his heart beat so he stands still. He can hear something...Shinji checks his pipboy radar and it has a red dot on it. Then looks up.

Standing in front of him is a pale man wearing a black outfit similar to X6-88 who tackles Shinji on the ground and grabs his throat. Asuka gets up from her bed to pull out her laser pistol but the man turns around and knocks the gun off of Asuka's hand and shoots her in the chest, seemingly killing her. Shinji looks in terror as the man now identified to be a synth courser. A mix of terror and anger perhaps really as his vision starts to fade a little. Shinji is losing oxygen as he commands his hand to find something, anything to take him down. He could feel a handle, its the pistol he had! Shinji grabs the pistol despite his hand feeling twitchy and light and aims the gun at the courser's head. He pulls the trigger which damages the synth but he still keeps on choking, another shot is placed and his grip is starting to loosen and finally, a third shot. The courser pulls away while backing away in shock from the shot to the head, he's giving out a signal. An emergency one! The synth was on a mission.

The courser falls backwards and drops dead on the ground. Shinji throws the pistol away and runs to Asuka who chest is smoking and there's a large burn mark in the center. He gently picks her up.

"Please, please..." Shinji whimpered. Asuka is the first person who he had met when he woke up from the cryo-stasis and she shouldn't be the last, if only if he reacted quickly enough then he would've killed that damn synth. He could feel a pulse...its getting stronger. Asuka coughs up a little with her burned vault suit. The door opens behind them to reveal Nora, Piper, diamond city security forces and some minutemen who were patrolling the streets.

"Is everyone alright?!" Nora asks worriedly while her wife pulls out her pistol. Asuka brushes Shinji off who is shock that she can get up from that, she grabs her Reilly's rangers chest piece and combat leggings right before loading her gun.

"We're fine, we just need to get this synth courser's body out of the city!" Asuka replied as Nora nodded and turns to the minutemen behind her.

"Prepare for a possible attack, warn everyone in the city!" Nora ordered. Shinji tries to think of a way to get the body out of the city...he looks at his bed sheet.

* * *

Asuka, Taisuke, and Shinji carry the courser's body to Cambridge while its wrapped in bed sheets with Hikari tagging along to get the scoop. Taisuke is wearing his NCR ranger armor complete with helmet and night vision to help him see better in the dark, he's feeling crabby since they woke him up at like 2:00AM. Asuka has some blood on her but she doesn't care, this courser will lead her straight to X6-88 and will help Shinji and Taisuke get revenge on the institute and find out what happened to his family. Question is: Why are they heading to Cambridge?

"Why are we heading to Cambridge!?" Asuka yelled at Shinji.

"Remember those brotherhood guys? They can help us take out X6 easily!" Shinji replied as they enter college square.

"Oh this is going to be the story of a lifetime!" Hikari bubbled at the thought, Piper gave her the permission to tag along with the gang and wanted to know them too! The lone wanderer and the courier teaming up to save a boy's family! The team up of the century! Like the unstoppables! Two heroes from different worlds have come to he commonwealth! They pass by college square and open the door by barging in while avoiding the landmines. This wakes up Danse, Touji, Amano, and Mayumi.

"Soldier, what the hell-" Danse tries to open his mouth and looks at the dead body of the synth in confusion. Taisuke holds the head body by its arms and drags it outside.

"We got the Institute's attention! I killed this thing they called a courser and now its giving off a distress beacon!" Shinji replied to Danse. Touji's eyes widen alongside his teammates.

"I know what's going to happen next, make sure you stock up on supplies!" Danse advised and loads his laser musket. Touji taps him by the shoulder causing the synth to look up at Touji.

"What is it paladin?" Danse asks.

"Follow me." Touji ordered as Danse holsters his laser musket. The two enter the evidence room...standing there is Danse's old armor, clean and almost untouched by by the weeks.

"We wanted it to be a surprise but given our situation, its best to give it to you early." Meanwhile Asuka is in the interrogation room stocking up on fusion cells and weaponry from the duffle bag nearby. Taisuke does the same thing but is looking for anti-material rifle rounds. Asuka finds one and throws it at him and he loads it in the process.

* * *

Coursers run back and fourth in the institute as X6-88 prepares for battle and picks up his institute laser rifle. He enters the teleporter now they have a fix on R7-2197's location.

* * *

Shinji picks up a laser rifle as he waits in front of the police station, Cambridge is a small town so it gives little to no tactical advantage in fighting. Hey may not have skills but he has the courage to fight X6-88. A flash of blue light strikes behind him and he turns around to see X6-88 with a team of coursers behind. Shinji grips the handle of his laser rifle and glares at the synth, the one who kidnapped Rei and made his family disappear.

"I hate to quote Kellogg but if it isn't the most resilient boy in the commonwealth. Funny, I thought I had that honor." X6 taunted. Shinji is close to pulling the trigger on X6.

"Where is my family!?" Shinji yelled at X6 who has a blank look on his face. Like talking to a wall.

"Look, I'm just a puppet to this little game of the institute. Rei, she's a good kid. A bit older than expected but still good. Don't worry, she's safe now." X6 replied calmly. Good, Shinji knows that she's safe.

"And my mom!?" The boy yelled.

"She put up a fight and I was forced to kill her but...she got better and left. Your father, I have no clue where he is. But still, don't worry, Rei is safe in the institute." The synth explained.

"The institute? Tell me how do I get there..." Shinji asks furiously.

"You don't come to the institute, the institute comes for you. But you have a small chance for it to come to you." X6 stated.

"...Nothing will stop me." Shinji muttered as X6 gives a small chuckle.

"Funny, I'm beginning to like you. Unfortunately, I'm here to take you in." X6 replied. Little does he know, Taisuke rises above the police station armed with his anti-material rifle and activating the red lenses on his gas mask and takes aim at a synth courser heavy's head. He fires the rifle which pierces the head of the synth, killing him and piercing his head.

"WHAT!?" X6 yelled in rage. Kicking down the door is paladin Danse armed with an automatic laser rifle, minutemen sergeant Danse is still here but as of now, paladin Danse has returned. Danse fires the laser rifle at X6 who dodges the shot. Touji comes out as his stealth boy deactivates and loads his minigun and open fires at the team thus causing them to disperse via stealth boys. Shinji fires his laser rifle at X6 who moves out of the way and fires back while taking cover behind a destroyed car. X6 shoots back at Shinji while his team takes cover.

A synth courser decloaks and loads his gun and sees an opening where he can shoot Shinji. He takes aim but he feels a click against his head causing his eyes to turn to see Hikari who shoots him in the head with her .44 magnum or formerly known as Kellogg's pistol. Another synth courser runs in the back of a pharmacy but he is knock down in the head by Asuka right before she unloads 5.6 rounds into his head. The synth courser team is reduced to only X6 remaining who is shooting at Shinji. The synth's weapon is deadly at best, landing shots that blow off parts of the car Shinji is taking cover in.

Shinji gathers his courage and patience...X6 reloads. He pulls out a weapon Nora gave him, the furious power fist. Shinji gets up and climbs on the car then vaults over the car X6 is taking cover in and launches a deadly punch at his face since the front of the gauntlet-like weapon is a cinder block with metal sticking out of it. A large chunk of flesh slacks from X6's face which knocks his shades down. X6 coughs up blood again and launches a deadly strike at the synth which kills him immediately. He loots his body and finds a strange device on his exposed head.

"What's this?" Shinji asks.

"That could be useful for the memory den. But lets go to goodneighbor tomorrow." Asuka said as she walks towards Shinji. Taisuke holsters his gun on his shoulder and nods. A job well done for the courier.

* * *

Diamond city.

Shinji and Asuka enter the house now that its 3:19AM, everyone is asleep in Diamond city and its there turn now to get some rest after what happened. He wonders...and remembers the promise Asuka told him. Shinji sits on the couch to catch his breath while Asuka goes back to her bed.

"Um...Asuka?" Shinji called.

"What is it stupid Shinji?" Asuka sarcastically replied.

"Now that we took down X6, why are you here in the commonwealth?" Shinji asks her. Asuka gets up from her bed and looks at Shinji, to give her attention and support, Shinji sits next to her.

"Years ago, in the capitol wastelands...there was a vault. Inside it was a thriving community of vault dwellers who lived in peace and harmony, amongst them was a doctor by the name of James Langley Soryu who fathered a daughter who never knew her mother. Years later, James met another woman who entered the vault and they married. The woman gave birth to a boy who later become a troublemaker. They lived a happy childhood. One day, the woman and the daughter's brother...were evicted from the vault. Thus making it two again, the father and the daughter. The daughter would later pass the GOAT test and gain a job as an explorer but fate had different plants. One day, the father disappeared from the vault while a radroach outbreak happened. The vault descended into chaos as the daughter tried her best to find him. Helped by her friend, the daughter wandered into the capitol wasteland hoping to find him...and she did. She made friends along the way, a brotherhood paladin, a ghoul mercenary, a Mr. Gutsy, a slave, her old bully, an ex-raider, a dog, and a super mutant. She fell in love with other people, a brotherhood sentinel, an annoying shopkeeper who is making a wasteland survival guide...the daughter found the father later, he was involved in something big and she wanted to be part of it. But at the end, a greater force known as the enclave sought to end us. The daughter..." She sighs.

"...Was later given a choice, to destroy all life...she refused at the end. She worked with the brotherhood and stopped the enclave dead on their tracks. She went on adventures no man or woman would imagine. But at the end...she lost it all again, the institute came to DC for no reason and took her friends away from her, they took everything from her. Discovering where her younger brother is, she sought to find him. So continues the story of the lone wanderer..." Asuka ended. She silently lays on her bed.

"Shinji...the reason why I'm here in the commonwealth is because I'm trying to piece together the family...I had. To make things right again in a world...that's so full of wrong." Asuka explained. Shinji looks down on the groundand gets up before shutting off the lights.

"Hey...idiot." Shinji turns to her.

"Can you...sleep with me? Just this once and don't cop a feel out of it." The boy blushes but realizes that Asuka was alone for the past ten years hence why she is called the lone wanderer, wanders everyday. Shinji lays next to Asuka...

"Can you...pull me closer? I'm too lazy to do it right now..." Shinji blushes again and pulls her closer. Asuka feels warm, almost like a red fuzzy teddy bear. The two drift to sleep...

* * *

Shinji opens his eyes and sees that Asuka is gone but he gets used to it...maybe he's accepting the world around him. People come and go, either leave or through death. Shinji opens the door...and sees something that he thought is impossible. Floating above diamond city with astonished crowds flocking and pointing their fingers is a large blimp accompanied by vertibirds escorting it.

"People of the commonwealth." The voice on the mic boomed as two more large blimps join it.

"Do not interfere, our intentions are peaceful. We are...the brotherhood of steel."


	8. Brotherhood of Steel part 1

Shinji looks in shock at the three blimps flying over Diamond city, he thoughts those thing were long gone at this point...turns out he was wrong. This must be Touji's group since they mentioned that they were contacting backup...question is: Where is Asuka? He looks around the astonished crowd with Nora getting out of publick occurrences, Shaun comes out too.

"Mom! Look! I can't believe this! I thought there was only one blimp!" Shaun awed at the sight of the three blimps. Taisuke is leaning against a door and looks at the three blimps hovering, it appears that they are heading towards the airport, the old base of the brotherhood when they settled in the commonwealth. He went to the place once, the place is now filled with feral ghouls but telling how the brotherhood works now, the ferals inside would end up turning into nothing but charred meat and flesh since they're more advanced now than ever. Hikari rushes towards Shinji.

"Three of them!? Are you kidding me?!" Doctor Sun observed the passing air-ships of the brotherhood. Hikari rushes towards Shinji in excitement, the brotherhood of steel is in the commonwealth! With their leader too! Elder Mari Makinami, youngest of the elders and the best elder the brotherhood has ever had.

"Areyouseeingthis?!Thisishappeningrightnowright?!Right?I'mnotgoingcrazyRIGHT!?Ohmygodohmygodwehavetogetinsidethosethreeginormouswarships-"Hikari sputtered.

"HIKARI!" Shinji yelled causing the reporter in training to snap out of it. He didn't care about the brotherhood of steel at the moment, he's looking for Asuka.

"Where is Asuka...?" He asks.

"She's off somewhere in Goodneighbor, heard she was talking to someone from the brotherhood of steel. If you didn't know, Asuka was involved in the fall of the enclave at the hands of the brotherhood and became a paladin...or an ex-paladin since she left for unknown reasons." Hikari notified since she read the lone wanderer's autobiography. Shinji nods his head at Hikari and heads outside of Diamond city with guards looking in awe as vertibirds deploy from the ships carrying jeeps and tanks with them complete with jets too.

A vertibird drops a jeep in front of Shinji with a ghoul brotherhood of steel member on the driver's seat. He is wearing a black brotherhood outfit complete with armor as his men get out of the jeep. Vertibirds are dropping on the buildings with brotherhood soldiers loading their laser sniper rifles and laser rifles.

Shinji walks towards the ghoul who is taking a smoke break and places his laser pistol on the side while he reads Grognak the barbarian.

"Excuse me, can you drive me to Goodneighbor? I need to see a friend there." Shinji requested prompting the ghoul to turn to him.

"Sure, hop on. Just don't mind the gunfire on our way." He gets on the back of the jeep as it starts to move to where the location is. Brotherhood soldiers are patrolling the road with minutemen as some roadways are blocked due to them purging the place of raiders, super mutants, and gunners.

"Anything that was law enforcement or military will be compounds for the brotherhood!" A knight ordered his men as they rush towards the police station with minutemen backing them up.. A group of minutemen and brotherhood soldiers stand outside of the gunner's base with gunfire heard inside. Another is a group of brotherhood soldiers setting up barricades on the roads leading to Fenhuli tower, a base for super mutants. The super mutants inside have retreated inside though and a group of brotherhood knights wait outside as they are waiting for backup. Shinji wonders if the brotherhood is what remains of the US army though, there tactics seem like it. The jeep stops in front of the Goodneigbhor wall.

"Here ya go kid." The ghoul said. Shinji gets off of the jeep and nods at the ghoul who drives off to join up with his brothers and sisters in diamond city, Shinji enters via door in front of him. He see's that Goodneigbhor is relatively small with brotherhood soldiers lining up on KLEO's stand and buying weapons from her while Minutemen are buying food from Daisy. Brotherhood and neighborhood watch are patrolling the streets together busting triggermen from their hideouts. Shinji spots Macready and Hancock talking together while leaning against a wall.

"Heard what happened to gunner's plaza?" Macready asks the mayor of Goodneighbor.

"Yeah, brotherhood have the place surrounded now. Its being shelled as we speak I've heard." Hancock replied. Shinji begins looking for Asuka around the place since its pretty small around here.

"You saw the lone wanderer? She hasn't aged at all!" A ghoul from the third rail said while she is heading outside. Shinji enters the third rail, there's Magnolia singing and whitechapel Charlie cleaning his drinks...Asuka is sitting and drinking some beer. Shinji walks towards her.

"Asuka?" Shinji called causing Asuka to turn around.

"Yeah?" Asuka replied.

"Where were you?" He worriedly asks since Asuka just suddenly disappeared.

"Remember that woman in that Chinese stealth suit? I went outside and saw her overlooking Diamond city so I trailed her to Goodneighbor, since it was still pretty dark, I thought I'd have an early breakfast here at the third rail. She got away though." Asuka explained. Shinji remembers the woman from before, he wondered who was she too. Shinji sighs.

"Please don't that again..." Shinji whimpered.

"What's the matter rookie? Can't live without the lone wanderer?" Asuka asks before taking a sip from her beer. She realizes that she's already finished with her beer and gets up.

"You still have that synth brain thing?" The redhead asks.

"Yes...? So, where's this memory den place?" Shinji questioned.

"Its here and not that far away from the third rail. Follow me." Asuka ordered. Shinji walks behind Asuka who walks upstairs from the bar and out of the third rail. Hancock is talking to a brotherhood initiate while Macready is testing out the laser rifle a brotherhood aspirint gave him. Shinji and Asuka spot the memory den, back then to Shinji, it used to be an old movie theater. Now its...whatever this is. Shinji enters first and makes a left down the hall and right to reveal people in pods with a blonde woman in a red dress similar to those from the 30's. She's sitting on a couch and reading a fashion magazine then looks up.

"Well, if isn't it the lone wanderer herself. Come to see relive your finest hours?" The woman asks as Asuka observes her.

"Irma...right? Taisuke told me about this place. Can we see doctor Amari?" Asuka asks.

"She's downstairs sweetheart." Irma replied. Asuka signals Shinji to come with her and go behind Irma as she continues reading her magazine, they go behind the entrance and head down the hall then make a right downstairs to the basement. Using her computer is doctor Amari, beside her is Curie helping her.

"Excuse me, doctor Amari, right?" Shinji asks causing the doctor to turn around.

"Yes, that is me." Amari replied to Shinji.

"This might sound a little strange...but I need to enter the brain of a synth." Shinji informed. Amari raised her eyes.

"Do you have the brain then? I can't let you enter memories of a synth if you don't." Amari replied. She rolls her eyes as a way of saying here we go again, the institute coming back and now a vault dweller wants to see whats inside a synth's brain. Shinji reaches for something in his pocket and pulls out the component.

"This thing...?" Shinji asks.

"Oh, zat is a synth brain component so zat is the perfect one to see through." Curie looks at the brain component as Shinji gives it to doctor Amari.

"Alright, please step inside that pod." Amari commanded. Shinji turns to the pod as Amari installs the brain component into the other pod and enters inside it. A screen comes up in front of Shinji as Asuka gives him a thumbs up. The dome surrounding Shinji blackens.

* * *

Shinji finds himself in a dark place, in front of him is a line with electricity surging through it. He walks slowly towards it and finds out its a makeshift bridge for him to walk on. He continues walking down the line and spots a small location leading to it. Shinji stops there to reveal X6-88's creation, like all gen-3 synths, X6 was created via bat of DNA. But his genetic template appears to be from Hawthorne. The newly born synth gets out of the pool. He is directed towards the courser training room.

 _Yes, that is me. From a synth standpoint, I was a baby. A rookie synth is what you would say._

Shinji follows X6-88 and finds himself in another place and another time. It appears to be nine years later since it shows X6 in his typical courser uniform. He is shuddering while he is looking at a dead body as he grips his institute laser pistol.

 _The first time I killed was during my first years as a courser. Coursers aren't supposed to show emotion but I...well, I felt remorse. Too bad I get a reset after this._

X6 turns away with Shinji following him to another path. He finds himself reporting in with a middle aged man resembling an old Nate of some sort, X6 still has a blank look on his face.

"I need you to accompany me. We've discovered a vault unrecorded from vault-tec records, vault 113. An experiment designed for people to rebuild society." The man explained to X6.

"Yes sir." He turns away with Shinji following him. Shinji finds himself in vault 113 again, X6 and Kellogg pass by him with gen-1 synths following them alongside the middle aged man...this is where they were attacked. Rei and his family...Shinji passes by them as Kellogg leads the group and enters the cryo-pod room inside.

"Get them out." Kellogg ordered the robots. The robots open the pods to reveal the occupants. Ritsuko, Maya, Fuyutsuki, Aoba, Ritsuko, and Maya. The synths give them blankets to recover from the cold they endured. Kellogg turns his attention to the pods where Shinji, Gendo, Yui and Rei are stored. He makes his way towards them as X6 deactivates Shinji's pod alongside Gendo's and Yui's.

"Did...Did we make it...?" Yui tiredly asks. Shinji doesn't want to look at this...

 _Stop! I can't look at this..._

"Its alright, everything is going to be okay..." Shinji tries to turn away but every direction he looks at, the same memory is there.

"Come here..." He covers his ears and looks in terror.

"No, wait, I've got her!"

"Let the girl go. I'm going to tell you once!" It plays the same like before. Gendo gets loose and fights Kellogg and X6 then the brotherhood of steel breaks inside the base. His family gone...before his eyes. Shinji sees that the scene has ended as he curls his hand into a fist and follows X6 who is running away. Shinji finds himself in a strange room...almost fancy in his taste. X6 is busy checking weapon out, beside him is a little girl that resembles Rei. A beam of light appears thus getting X6's attention.

"So how is Nevada?" A synth asks in a stealth suit. X6 gets up.

"Nevada is nothing but trash on earth, isn't that right Rei?" X6 asks her as he turns to Rei. Rei simply nods.

"Yes, there's nothing but death and destruction." Rei replied. X6 walks in front of Rei and turns to her.

"Are you ready to go back home?" He asks. Rei nods and walks next to X6 as a beam of light appears with X6, Rei, and the synth gone. Shinji looks around in fear and loads his pistol...the memory comes to an end.

* * *

The pod opens as Shinji looks around the pod. It opens up with Shinji getting up quickly, he was so close to finding the Institute but somehow it ends like this...a memory that ended so quickly. Curie is busy trying to reboot the computer but nothing is working. Shinji weakly gets up from the pod and shakes his head. He feels that he forgot himself a little...himself. Shinji shakes it off.

"What...What happened!?" Shinji asks Amari. He shakes her a little but Amari calmly pushes him off with Curie softly restraining him. Amari itches her arm a little in worry.

"It appears the brain component was still connected to the Institute, the moment you looked into X6's memories, the Institute cut off the connection to the component." Amari sighed. Shinji looks down in shame...this was all for nothing. Curie looks at Shinji, Nora taught her to have hope all the time so there must be some spark of hope.

"Was there anything important you saw?" Curie asks causing Shinji to turn to her.

"I saw...X6 disappear with my little sister through a beam of light and that stealth suited person too..." Shinji explained. Little do they know, someone is walking down the basement and they can vaguely hear the steps.

"That sounds like a molecular teleporter..." Asuka observed.

"I know! We can't build that...not at all..." Shinji gives up. After everything, he hoped he would find Rei...but, but this was something else. They can't just build a molecular teleporter and head to the Institute. So he just gives up. Asuka follows Shinji, this reminded her of herself back at DC but star paladin Cross pulled her together.

"Shinji." Asuka calls but he doesn't listen and continues walking. She continues calling his name but he continues walking away from Asuka. The vault dweller grabs him by the shoulder and turns him around.

"WHAT-" She throws a punch at him.

"You risked your life to find your sister and family and you're giving up on them!? You idiot! That's the last thing you can give up on!" Asuka yelled at Shinji.

"And what do you know!? You lost your mom and dad only and Taisuke still remains!" Shinji spat back. Asuka is pulled back a little...and retaliates by punching Shinji in the gut causing him to kneel.

"Listen here you, I told you everything about me and you know that. I thought I saw a little bit of myself in you but it turns out I was wrong. From here on out, you're on your own. I'm going after the institute, just stay back at diamond city." Asuka said and walks away...Shinji gets up and loads his rifle. Entering Goodneighbor is Taisuke with his rifle holstered on his back. He has an optimistic smile on his face since he has ties with the brotherhood of steel in the past, especially with Veronica and McNamara. Taisuke wonders what happened to the elder of the Mojave. The courier stops and spots Shinji walking away with Asuka walking away behind him.

"Uh Shinji...? I think I know a couple of guys who can help us...wait, what's going on?" Taisuke asks. Shinji walks past him as Taisuke realizes what's going on...

"Please don't tell me-Really!? We fought a team of synth coursers and you're giving up!?" He yelled at his friend.

"I found a way into the institute but its through a teleporter thing. I...I give up. X6 says that institute comes to me and that teleporter, I don't have the resources to build it. Sure I have Nora but the Minutemen don't seem to have the resources to build such a device-" Taisuke rifle butts Shinji in face.

"Are you kidding me!? We could always use that old teleporter back at Sanctuary Hills! That and why didn't you say so!? I could talk with the brotherhood of steel to help build us a teleporter!" He yelled much to Shinji's shock.

"...Oh no." Shinji muttered. Taisuke sighs in response.

"Alright, lets go." Taisuke ordered.

"But what about Asuka?"

"She'll need to cool off after this but she'll come back. If there's anything we'll need, its with the brotherhood and I have good ties with them." The two walk away from the memory den as Shinji turns around to see Asuka leaning against the wall of the hotel. Shinji knows that its all his fault, Asuka is mad at him now and if he talks to her, she'll lash out again. Shinji turns to Taisuke.

"So where can we find the brotherhood?" Shinji asks.

"Probably back at their old base, the airport." Taisuke explained. The two head outside as brotherhood soldiers followed by tanks driving behind them. Taisuke looks for a jeep or a brotherhood soldier who can offer them a ride. He spots a female brotherhood soldier leaning against a hummer. The courier walks up to the soldier.

"Excuse me...Knight or something. We kinda need a ride to the airport." He requested.

"Sorry civilian, the airport is off limits and the roads are pretty hectic right now. Gunfights left and right. Its best to stay in Goodneighbor since the Commonwealth is in martial as of now." The soldier explained. Shinji steps forward.

"We know a way into the institute but we need your help." The soldier freezes at Shinji's plan. The brotherhood has been at war against the Institute for weeks and now there's a spark of hope against these monsters. She pauses for a minute...

"Hop in and brace yourselves."

* * *

"OH MY GOD, WE'RE GOING TO DIE!" Shinji cried while Taisuke is firing the machine gun in the back with the female brotherhood soldier driving the hummer. Raiders are falling back while firing their pipe rifles at the brotherhood vehicles. Shinji grips his seat since there is no seat belt in the hummer as the vehicle continues to zig and zag around to avoid rockets fired at them. Taisuke is hit in the shoulder causing him to let go of the machine gun.

"Dammit! Shinji, take the gun!" Taisuke yelled as he gets down to find a stimpak since he forgot to bring one. A raider latches onto the car but Taisuke pulls out a short sawed off automatic laser musket dubbed courier's special and shoots him off. Shinji slowly gets on the machine gun's hatch and grabs the handle and trigger of the gun. All around him are raiders being mowed down by brotherhood soldiers and minutemen alike, its a massacre, the purge of the Commonwealth. An eviction notice for the raiders who didn't get the memo.

"Jeez, the brotherhood is going ham on anyone and anything that harms a civilian in the Commonwealth!" Taisuke commented and stabs a stimpak into his arm but his arm is still crippled. Shinji fires the machine gun wildly while screaming and missing raiders nearby. They are driving in what's left of east city downs with raiders retreating and firing their weapons wildly at the brotherhood forces invading the place. A gunner vertibird is seen taking off on the school nearby with Shinji turning the machine gun at it and starts firing, the vertibird dodges the shot and starts firing at the jeep causing it to move to the left and right while dodging the shots from the aircraft. The brotherhood soldier dodges a round that goes through the roof and hits a raider in power armor which knocks him down.

"Shit..." The brotherhood soldier growled and tries to reverse the car with Shinji shooting the veritbird via machine gun. The hummer is jammed since the power armor is stuck on it. The vertibird circles around them and opens fire yet again. Taisuke gets out of the hummer with his arm healed again and walks towards the power armor while avoiding fire from the vertibird. He drags the dead raider away from the hummer causing the vehicle to reverse with Taisuke firing courier's special and fires at the vertibird then gets inside.

The hummer hastily drives forward at maximum speed causing Shinji to hit his back on the hatch opening while Taisuke almost bumps his head on the passenger seat.

"Why is this thing going fast!?" Shinji asks while he frantically fires the machine gun.

"The brotherhood is about to start a bombing real soon via planes we got from the boomers! We'll be flatten!" She replied. The hummer speeds past a few raiders and avoids the shots from the vertibird. Shinji can hear something...it sounds like a plane.

"Get down!" The soldier ordered as Shinji nods his head and braces himself. The vertibird pilot laughs in joy as he continues to fire at them...he looks at the reflector and sees a large B17 bomber plane hovering over the vertibird. He attempts to sway but the first bomb hits the vertibird thus destroying it and killing the pilot too. Shinji grabs onto his seat while enduring the explosion's shock and vibration. The hummer speeds up and dodges the bombs, the jeep soon gets out of the vicinity and makes a sharp turn. Shinji open the door and hurls on the ground with Taisuke groaning in disgust. The town is a smoking ruin now with brotherhood and minutemen patrolling overlooking the destruction. The town was already raider city anyway, now the raiders are at the run now and have a reason to be afraid of the two factions.

Taisuke whistles at the destruction.

"Nice to see they put the boomer's aircrafts to good use. Goodbye Institute when the brotherhood finds out where your new hiding spot is." He mocked. Taisuke gets inside the jeep's passenger seat with Shinji sickly getting back inside. Shinji could still feel the vibration which makes him feel dizzy as the hummer continues moving. Ringing is heard in Shinji's ears but it begins to die down a little. He simply slumps against the window in exhaustion.

* * *

Shinji awakens against the window to see they're in the airport and its night. He wishes this is all a bad dream. He wishes he can just wake up and see that he's in his bed readying for the first day of school. This is the world he found himself in now...a world that's cruel and harsh. Where people struggle to survive and attempt to rebuild civilization but others get in the way so the answer is death and destruction. The Commonwealth, his home, ripped apart and pulled back together. Shinji gets out of the hummer to see Taisuke leaning against a barricade.

"Well, you were out quite cold. Not surprised though. I'd fall asleep after seeing a bombing run." Taisuke commented. Shinji still hears ringing in his ears and could barely hear Taisuke. Shinji cleans his ears a little and can hear clearly now. The airport is filled to the brim with brotherhood personnel working around the clock setting up the turrets and making rounds around the base.

"Man...I feel like a mortal amongst gods here! This is the fucking brotherhood of steel! I always wanted to join up with these guys but elder McNamara refused since my allegiance is with the NCR." He whistled causing Shinji to turn around.

"You...know the brotherhood?"

"Of course I do! Did you forget? I had...a friend who was a member, always kept her power fist as a memoir. But I have another friend here and she...well, she is from a different chapter and she's the elder." Taisuke bragged.

"Elder? What's that?"

"The elder is the leader of the brotherhood of steel. Sort of like a general of the group. But this elder...well, she's different. She follows the ways of her chapter which is the Midwest brotherhood of steel and mixes it with the old ways of the elder Maxson and Lyons. But she puts technology second in place and saving the world as a top priority." Taisuke replied. Shinji likes the sound of this person he's talking about, she must be a good person.

"Now follow me, there's a vertibird parked on the helipad." Shinji follows Taisuke to the vertibird pad with brotherhood soldiers passing by them. They stop at the helipad with a brotherhood knight guarding it.

"Ad Victorium knight." Taisuke saluted the knight.

"Ad Victorium to you civilian, state your business." The armored soldier asks.

"I believe my friend here has important intel concerning the Institute. A possible way inside." The knight's eyes widen underneath his helmet.

"Get inside the vertibird." He ordered strictly. The two enter the vertibird's passenger seats with the knight ordering the pilot to drive towards the Prydwen. The vertibird ascends towards the Prydwen which is decked near the Mordrid and the Gawain. Shinji looks down in awe at the Commonwealth, but at the same time, sadness since he could see the damage the nukes caused. Through the ruins...he wonders if he can truly find his family around here really. The aircraft docks at the docking bay of the ship. Taisuke turns to Shinji.

"Alright, we're here and it looks like the elder is saying her address. Lets go." The two head up to the deck to reveal the flight deck where Mari is in center with brotherhood soldiers looking at her in order with undivided attention. Next to them is Piper, Nora, Preston, Desdemona, Hikari and Danse.

"Brothers, sisters, and fellow people of the Commonwealth. The road has been long and fraught with difficulty but it is in utmost pride that we alongside the Railroad and Minutemen are quickly uniting the Commonwealth. The raider camps have been decimated, the super mutants who are far too gone leaving, the feral's being cleared, and finally, the gunners on their dying breath. By facilitating our growth in the Commonwealth, we are giving the people a chance at hope once again. But let us not forget why we are here: Somewhere in the Commonwealth, is a cancer known as the Institute. As you can see, they've burned down New Vegas as a show that they are better than us. But we have proven to them that they aren't. They are testing with dangerous technology and strains of FEV by releasing super mutants into the Commonwealth which causes more harm than good. They believe they are the last hope of humanity when in reality, every death is a setback to them and every massacre like the one in New Vegas, is nothing more than just cleaning the gene pool. I will not allow this to happen. Therefore, the Institute and the synths that sided with them, are enemies of the Brotherhood and the Commonwealth. The campaign will be long and fraught with difficulty but at the end, will be saving the world from a threat worse than the Enclave. Ad Victorium!" Mari ended and saluted. The soldiers do the same alongside Nora and Danse.

"In other news, paladin Danse has returned to the Brotherhood of Steel. As an apology to the way we treated you, you are give your rank of paladin again and a stay amongst us." She said as Danse salutes yet again.

"Its an honor to return to the Brotherhood." The crowd disperses with Piper having the whole speech on her notepad and Hikari video taping it. Piper walks up to the elder.

"Elder Makinami, with all of the Brotherhood's activities in the Commonwealth, how do we thank you for all this? You've made the Libertalia a settlement, you and the Minutemen worked to get Quincy back from the gunners. How can we ever thank you?" Piper asks.

"The only way of thanking us is by not, the Brotherhood serves the people of the Commonwealth like the Minutemen. It is our job in saving the world from threats that that it can't handle and our objective in bringing back civilization." Mari replied.

"So about allowing synths into the ranks of the Brotherhood, are you a little worried that the Institute would use a reset code that would take them back?" She asks again.

"Synths in the Brotherhood have been in the ranks for quite sometime in the Midwest where they flee. But that issue has been dealt with, the reset codes in Brotherhood synths have been disabled by our scribes which renders them incapable of turning back to the Institute." Mari explained.

"Now, will Brotherhood operations cease once the war with the Institute is over?"

"Unless the Commonwealth has been purged of raiders, insane super mutants, ferals, and gunners, we'll be here for quite sometime. But either way, the Minutemen will be given technology supported by the Brotherhood to take care of such threats." She replied.

"Also, what will the Brotherhood do to the synths when the Institute has been destroyed yet again?"

"The synths will be supported by the Railroad while other synths are allowed into our ranks."

"And the concern of ghoul members of the Brotherhood, what happens if they turn feral?" Piper asks in worry.

"Impossible, they were given an enhanced serum of rad-x from scribe Neriah in particular."

"Annd that's all for today. Thank you for the interview elder Makinami and good luck in your war." Piper leaves alongside Hikari with Nora and Preston remaining.

"The gunners have fully surrendered and handed all tech to us." Preston informed.

"Good, brotherhood personnel will be training Minutemen on how to drive." The two leave with Taisuke and Shinji present. Mari smiles at Taisuke, the courier himself...and also her childhood friend.

"Its been a long time, Taisuke." She smiled.

"Long time to you Mari and look, you've changed the Brotherhood for good. Last we met, you were a paladin in New Vegas and now, the leader of the Brotherhood of steel." Taisuke replied.

"I managed to change up the way back to Lyons and with Maxson. But yes, I am the leader of the Brotherhood of steel. Let me guess, you're still a courier?"

"Its my profession. Might join the Minutemen one day but with my behavior, I'd like to work on it." Shinji is feeling the third wheel.

"Perhaps we shall work on it by having a few drinks and a couple of singles after that if you know what I mean?" Mari flirted causing the courier to blush alongside Shinji.

"Oh...probably." Taisuke flirted back with the two staring at each other. Shinji doesn't want this to go on.

"Ahem." Shinji called getting Taisuke and Mari's attention.

"Oh yes, this guy here saw the memories of a synth courser. He saw how to get inside the Institute and we might need the Brotherhood's help at this in the ending the war early." Taisuke explained.

"Do explain." Mari ordered.

"In the memory, I saw a flash of light appear to take the courser away with my sister. I'm guessing the brotherhood has enough resources?" Shinji asks.

"We do, you're describing a molecular teleporter...problem is that we do have the resources but we don't have the plans. But...I think we know the guy who can help us. Thank you citizen, paladin Suzuhara told us about you and your struggle to find your family." Mari thanked.

"Who is this person?"

"Brian Virgil, former Institute scientist. He's out there in ground zero aka the glowing sea...problem is, vertibirds can't pass through it but we have a solution to that problem. I suggest you should get some rest though for this operation." Mari simply salutes to Shinji and Taisuke as they both nod. The two head outside of the room with a brotherhood soldier waiting for them.

"I'm here to escort you two to your quarters in the Prydwen." He said causing Shinji to nod knowing he's going to get a room. They use the latter to head upstairs to reveal an entrance way with three rooms as the hatch is in the middle.

"Your room is this one, the Prydwen quarters and there's already a roommate in it. Courier, you'll be bunking with the elder." Shinji simply nods while Taisuke yawns and enters the room with Shinji doing the same. Inside is a bunk bed with Auska reading a book much to Shinji's shock.

"A-Asuka?" Shinji called causing her to turn to him.

"I thought I told you I have this covered. You gave up after all." Asuka grimaced as Shinji falls silent and sits on the bottom.

"I...I got back on my feet. My family is out there waiting for me and I can't just give up on them...besides, I have you of all people to help me out." Shinji replied.

"Are you trying to say you're sorry?" Asuka asks.

"Well...my sentence was a prelude to saying I'm sorry but yes. Asuka...I want to say I'm sorry. That was stupid of me about me saying about your mom and dad. I realized how...lucky I am compared to you." Shinji replied as Asuka gets down from her bed.

"You're an idiot...but an unrelenting idiot like I was." Asuka leans her head against Shinji's arm causing him to blush.

"Asuka-"

"Just let me rest, idiot. Its bad enough I'm back to working with these guys again, especially with that perverted elder who clearly has thing for my brother under that stoic disguise." Shinji smiles at Asuka which she does in response. The two doze off with Asuka hugging onto Shinji. Paladin Danse opens the door.

"Shinji-oh, goodnight you two." He shuts off the light.


	9. One shot: Big Iron

Taisuke hops off the vertibird knowing that the military styled beds of the Prydwen are a bit too much for him and he couldn't sleep again. The vertibird is in the entrance of Goodneigbhor, off to find more drinks than before. Its been ten years and he still hasn't forgotten what happened to New Vegas...all that hard work and tears to defend a city only for it to be burned by a bunch of pretentious science nerds with robots mixed with enclave tech. He enters the place, same as usual except more quiet than before and heads into the third rail bar. He sits in front of whitechapel Charlie who is the Mr. Handy and bartender.

"Same usual?" The Mr. Handy asks the courier as Taisuke nods. This might be his second chance in taking down the Institute really, if Shinji can lead him, then those deaths at New Vegas weren't all for nothing. Someone sits next to him causing him to turn to see Mari again, the elder of the Brotherhood of Steel.

"Mari, didn't expect you to be here. I thought an elder would be drinkin some scotch or wine, represents class." Taisuke observed the elder. Mari is wearing her typical coat.

"Well, a woman has her needs really. I need to get loose sometime around, otherwise the stress will get into me and I turn into another elder Maxson." The elder sarcastically replied.

"Ha ha, real funny. You already remind of Maxson...but more Lyons-like with the whole saving the world crusade." Taisuke chuckled as Mari softly punched him.

"So...you came here to drink to forget?" Taisuke asks her.

"A little bit of both." The redhead raises his eyebrow.

"Why?"

"I drink to remember...the people who's deaths back at New Vegas that weren't in vain. I look back and I remembered, it was the darkest moment the Brotherhood ever faced. We were a mess." Mari replied as Taisuke smirked.

"Yeah, elder Maxson died, East coast forces were forced to fallback to Helios-one and Midwest couldn't anything since they didn't have enough firepower." Taisuke could remember how the Brotherhood nearly fell, New Vegas was burning and Brotherhood soldiers ran left and right away from the Institute's forces.

"Then I came in and everything turned to history." Mari boasted and drank some bourbon.

"Say Mari...about the Brotherhood and all, how did you come back from that?" Taisuke asks.

"Well, not only I realized that I was the descendant of the warrior but I made a promise to myself to a certain redheaded little boy back at New Vegas. I promised to save the world one day as its the Brotherhood's duty to do so. That...I realized I had to do it for them, my fallen brothers and sisters who died there." She explained.

"...You know, sometimes I wish I was stronger than you." Taisuke said as Mari turns to him.

"Here I am, the hero of the NCR and savior of the Mojave...drinking his sorrows away in a bar up North and hunting down an organization who's tracks gone cold. The courier is no more." He sighed. Mari places her hand on his.

"You just don't know how strong you are." Magnolia overhears the two and smiles, Taisuke does need a break a little. He saw his friends die in front of him and the place he swore to protect burned down by the Institute. It is said when the courier slayed Caesar, a song was played in tribute of his actions. Magnolia gets on the stage for her she prepared for the hero of the Mojave who everyone seemed to forgotten about.

 _To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day_

This gets Taisuke and Mari's attention.

 _Hardly spoke to folks around him didn't have too much to say  
No one dared to ask his business no one dared to make a slip  
for the stranger there among them had a big iron on his hip  
Big iron on his hip._

He remembers...and the first time, he doesn't get another bourbon to drink his sorrows away. He listens.

 _It was early in the morning when he rode into the town  
He came riding from the south side slowly lookin' all around  
He's an outlaw loose and running came the whisper from each lip  
And he's here to do some business with the big iron on his hip  
big iron on his hip_

Taisuke slowly smiles at the song.

 _In this town there lived an outlaw by the name of Texas Red  
Many men had tried to take him and that many men were dead  
He was vicious and a killer though a youth of twenty four  
And the notches on his pistol numbered one an nineteen more  
One and nineteen more._

The song played when he won Hoover dam alongside the NCR.

 _Now the stranger started talking made it plain to folks around  
Was an Arizona ranger wouldn't be too long in town  
He came here to take an outlaw back alive or maybe dead  
And he said it didn't matter he was after Texas Red  
After Texas Red_

This perfectly matches his journey in New Vegas and the Mojave and Taisuke is okay with that.

 _Wasn't long before the story was relayed to Texas Red_  
 _But the outlaw didn't worry men that tried before were dead_  
 _Twenty men had tried to take him twenty men had made a slip_  
 _Twenty one would be the ranger with the big iron on his hip_  
 _Big iron on his hip_

His friends singing this song when they celebrated.

 _The morning passed so quickly it was time for them to meet  
It was twenty past eleven when they walked out in the street  
Folks were watching from the windows every-body held their breath  
They knew this handsome ranger was about to meet his death  
About to meet his death._

The streets of New Vegas teeming with life and hope.

 _There was forty feet between them when they stopped to make their play_  
 _And the swiftness of the ranger is still talked about today_  
 _Texas Red had not cleared leather fore a bullet fairly ripped_  
 _And the ranger's aim was deadly with the big iron on his hip_  
 _Big iron on his hip_

Taisuke makes a full smile alongside Mari. For the first time in years, he was smiling cause he wasn't drunk.

 _It was over in a moment and the folks had gathered round  
There before them lay the body of the outlaw on the ground  
Oh he might have went on living but he made one fatal slip  
When he tried to match the ranger with the big iron on his hip  
Big iron on his hip._

The song comes to an end with Magnolia making a warm smile at Taisuke. He gives a toast to her and drinks his bourbon, for some reason, he feels that he doesn't need a drink right now.

"Hey Mari, you staying here?" Taisuke asks her. Mari shakes her head.

"No, lets head back to the Prydwen." Mari replied. The two get up with Mari leading the way, Taisuke turns around towards Magnolia and smiles as a way of saying thank you to her. For showing that there's still the hero of the Mojave alive somewhere. The vertibird arrives at the courtyard of Goodneighbor as Taisuke and Mari board the aircraft causing it to take off. The ride back to Prydwen was silent but silent in a good way, for the first time in years, Taisuke felt peace which is rare for anyone to experience it. He looks out into the Commonwealth with a determined look, the Institute better start praying...cause the courier won't be showing any mercy for the blood they spilled.

* * *

Big Red belongs to Marty Robbins


	10. Brotherhood of Steel part 2

Shinji wakes up again but this time Asuka clinging onto him. She feels soft, almost like she was untouched by the wasteland around him. He takes comfort in this, a far cry away from the chaos and disorder that goes on in the Commonwealth. He lays on the bed for a moment while clutching Asuka against him. The lone wanderer herself...he hates to admit it, he kind of likes her. All those worries fade away when he's with her. Asuka begins to move a little signifying she's waking up. Asuka opens her eyes slowly and smiles at him.

"Good morning rookie." Asuka yawned and gets off of him. Shinji gets up and stretches, he's well rested now and is ready to take on the world...well, not like pull out a rifle and go on a shooting spree type. But ready to fight whatever is thrown at him. The door opens to reveal the crewmen of the Prydwen walking left and right while Taisuke out of the elder's quarters and yawning and scratching the back of his head. He looks like he had a nightmare before he woke up...Shinji could tell he's a troubled person, especially how drinks his sorrows away. Brotherhood soldiers are busy talking and checking out their laser rifles as Shinji passes by them. They enter the rather small mess hall of the ship to reveal the soldiers eating their meals and other food like noodles. Danse is also talking to knight Rhys as he shows off his new advanced power armor he got from the Midwest.

"Where are we supposed to be going now?" Shinji asks Asuka as she turns around. He's still in awe really, the airship is a little small but it feels large with soldiers running around.

"I suppose downstairs." Asuka replied and goes down the latter. Shinji follows her downstairs and heads towards the elder's room where Mari observes the Commonwealth from above. Inside is Mari doing exactly what the room was made for, watching over the Commonwealth. It appears Mari has awoken earlier than them.

"Elder Makinami." Shinji called thus getting her attention. The elder looks both intimidating but at the same time, gives a peaceful vibe to her too. Almost like a person who saw her mistakes in the past. A person who saw the worse and moved on or at least, scarred from her experience.

"I see you're fully rested. Now this might sound like another tenuous task to you but its time to begin your tour of the Prydwen by meeting her crewmen. I know you want to bring the fight to the Institute but its best to know the people who are helping you." Mari addressed and walks past them but stops suddenly and turns around.

"Since you are new here, I'll be your guide on board the ship." She said and heads to the latter to head upstairs. Shinji couldn't shake the feeling that the Brotherhood seems a little shady at the moment. Asuka walks forward.

"Um Asuka..." Shinji called causing her to turn around.

"Yeah?" Asuka replied.

"These Brotherhood guys...I know we worked with Touji and all and its clear they have good intentions but at the same time, they're a little extreme after what I just saw back there with the bombing..." He winced as he remembered how all of those raiders were annihilated. Asuka sighed and smiled remembering he's still a rookie.

"Don't worry baka, the Brotherhood maybe extreme but they all mean well unlike last time with Maxson, the old leader before Mari. So don't you fret now and plus, I have ties with the Brotherhood of Steel before I left for...personal reasons." Asuka replied and follows Mari upstairs. Shinji follows Asuka as the two women walk in the halls of the Prydwen. The first stop is proctor Quinlan's room as they stop there to see the proctor looking over some technical documents.

"This is proctor Quinlan, our lead field scribe." Mari introduced causing him to turn to them.

"Well I'll be, I never expected the lone wanderer to appear here in the Commonwealth. Really. I should be honored." The Brit walks towards them.

"As elder Makinami said, I lead the field scribes here on the Prydwen. Assigning them operations by collecting old world technology, but there's another thing I'm also interested in. The collection of technical documents for the Brotherhood to study." Quinlan informed.

"Nice to see people are interested in the old world rather than surviving." Shinji observed.

"Why yes indeed. I also heard you are from the old world too. I wouldn't mind interviewing some other time." Quinlan replied and smiled.

"And if you have any...Grognak the barbarian comics too." He added.

"I used to own a whole collection of them back at my home in Jen Hills. I can bring them if you want." Shinji said. The proctor's eyes light up in joy, most of his field scribes would bring a rare issue from the field but an entire collection!? He's already joyed as it is and is screaming inside at the announcement.

"Well, this might be the only time an initiate got my attention." Quinlan commented.

"Initiate?" Shinji asks.

"You are an initiate, right?" Quinlan asks.

"Shinji isn't a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, he's one of our associates in our war against the Institute." Mari corrected the proctor.

"Oh, never mind then. I do hope you join the Brotherhood one of these days." Quinlan goes back to his studies. Shinji takes a liking to the proctor, another fellow comic geek. Mari takes lead but this time to the room in front of Quinlan's. They enter the room to reveal its a medical room. A rather bald man is on the desk looking at some medical papers.

"This is knight-captain Cade, the Prydwen's medic." Mari introduced thus getting Cade's attention.

"Ah, an initiate I presume?" Cade asks her.

"No, an associate of the Brotherhood. His name is Shinji Ikari." Mari replied while rolling her eyes. She forgot to tell everyone about Shinji and now she has to introduce everyone by saying the same thing over and over.

"Then its a pleasure to meet you." Cade greeted Shinji. The knight-captain turns to Mari.

"Elder, if you don't mind, I wish to do a medical inspection on the associate. Just a few question and that's all it." He reasoned.

"Sure thing." Mari signals Asuka to come with her outside to give Shinji's some privacy. Cade pulls out a sheet to write down Shinji's medical records.

"Alright, I'm going to ask you a series of medical-related questions and I'd like you to answer me to the best of your ability." Cade informed. He flips to the first question.

"As a child, were you exposed to radiation sickness?" He asks.

"Never, I was in a vault." Shinji answered.

"You're from a vault? That means you're in peek physical condition! Okay, second question. Have you ever had or come in contact with a person confirmed to be carrying a communicable disease?" Cade asks.

"Never seriously sick in my entire life. I've been stuck in cryostasis for years."

"You saw the world before the bombs? Never mind, final and last question and be honest with it, have you ever had sexual relations with any species considered non-human?" Shinji blushes at the question which is a definite no.

"No." He simply answered while turning red.

"Alright, that is all . You may continue your tour on the Prydwen." Shinji gets out of the medical bay. Mari is leaning against the wall while Asuka is playing Red Menace on her pip-boy. Mari notices Shinji causing her to get off the wall.

"Now that you have seen knight captain Cade, its time for you to meet proctor Ingram. Follow me." Mari signals Shinji to follow her. They pass by the relatively small mess hall. Rhys is spotted showing off more of the features of the advanced Midwestern power armor he was given to Danse as the paladin rolls his eyes and crossing his arms. Shinji spots a woman wearing a power armor frame and repairing the stations nearby.

"Shinji, this is proctor Ingram." Mari introduced as Ingram turns to them. Shinji notices she's missing legs.

"Well, another vault dweller like Nora. You're in for a hell of a ride with the Brotherhood, just don't soil yourself." Ingram joked. Shinji gulps in slight fear since he saw a bombing run that almost killed him so this will be a ride.

"Thank you for the welcome." Shinji replied.

"If you need anything like a robot going crazy, the Prydwen going down, and other things that go haywire, come find me." Ingram informed. Mari leads the two again to this time, the armory. Inside the armory is a group of Brotherhood scribes setting up crates in the counter while a man with pulled back black hair and beard is busy checking out a pistol.

"Proctor Teagan." Mari called causing Teagan to turn to her.

"Just finished up the touches of your pistol, path of the righteous elder, next time check the receiver before it explodes again." Teagan warned as he gives it to her.

"Thank you proctor, an explosive pistol will always come in handy." Mari replied and checked the magazine revealing the rounds inside it.

"So, another recruit?" Teagan asks her.

"He's an associate who is willing to bring the fight against the Institute after what they've done." Mari answered. Teagan turns to Shinji, he reminded him of Rico in some way.

"If you need anything that'll help ya take out a super mutant behemoth, a pack of burned feral ghouls or anything, come find me." Teagan informed. Its time now, Mari turns to the two.

"Now, your mission. Follow me to the deck." Mari walks ahead. Shinji could feel a level of trust amongst the Brotherhood, Mari seems to be a good leader. Especially having three warships to bring the fight to the Institute. But to Asuka, she feels Mari has changed the Brotherhood way too much, sure they're still the tech hoarding jerks she remembered but this all reminds of her of Lyons in someway, except they put people first and technology second. Almost like the Minutemen in some ways. Touji did mention the ways of Lyons has returned which means they returned to helping people but still kept the traditional part. Still, Asuka isn't surprised that the ways Lyons returned either way, after seeing New Vegas burn, its hard not to change intentions when an entire city was burned to the ground.

Shinji picks up a laser rifle nearby and inserts the fusion cell but it falls out, he picks it up and tries to reinsert the fusion cell but it falls out again. Asuka sighs irritably and grabs the laser rifle and inserts the fusion cell back in and switches on the lock so it can hold it then turns off the safety on the gun right before handing it back to Shinji.

"T-Thanks." Shinji thanked. The two head towards the end of the hallway and go down the latter leading to the Prydwen command room and elder's deck then head outside to the vertibird deck that leads them to Mari who is overlooking fort strong. She turns around to them.

"I know you wish to bring the fight to the Institute but first, in order to find Brian Virgil, we're going to need something that will help us go through the glowing sea. The radiation clouds and mist is enough to blind all visuals. That's where fort strong comes in, inside the base is a specialized radar and thermal technology that will help us see through the glowing sea." Mari explained.

"I can see the bad part." Asuka commented.

"Wise as always wanderer, the base is filled to the brim with raiders and gunners who stocked up a last stand against the Brotherhood. They don't know they have the tech yet but once they do, they'll flee to the glowing sea and restock there since there is an unknown amount of technology stored within the confines of the ruins that litter the place." She replied. Asuka rolls her eyes, no matter what happens, there will always be raiders so no point in carpet bombing them.

"Now, its time to know how we work so this is a demo for you Shinji." Mari said.

"Get to the vertibird, it'll take you to the airport." She informed and salutes Shinji. Shinji gulps, it appears he forgot to tell Mari how he saw the bombing run on the raiders. But a vertibird ride isn't so bad...if he gets airsick of course. Asuka on the other hand, is kind of used to riding a vertibird since she worked with the Brotherhood before, especially with operation Broken Steel. The two head towards the vertibird nearby on deck with the pilot inside it, it takes off with Shinji looking at the view of the Commonwealth.

* * *

The vertibird lands on the landing pad of the airport, nearby is Taisuke wearing his typical armored vault suit and twirling his ranger Sequoia revolver and holstering it. Holstered on his back is the Gobi campaign sniper rifle he picked up back at the Mojave. Taisuke always preferred high damage weapons, helps him take out the enemy enemy quicker since he's always impatient. Nearby is his power armor. Asuka looks around to see if there's any power armor for her since she prefers the normal model rather than the T60 variant, it always made her slow while the other armor gave her more tactical advantages and make her faster.

A soldier with black armor walks towards them. He is wearing a black T51b power armor while accompanied by another soldier who is wearing T45 power armor, classic power armor, the armor Asuka prefers over the bulky T60 variant.

"The vertibird is docked at the crashed airplane, our forces are in front of the fort." The soldier informed. Asuka has a question.

"So you have any standard power armor? Like the normal kind at DC." Asuka asks the soldier.

"Yeah, we do. Its in logistic division." The soldier replied.

"Wait here." Asuka ordered the two. She goes the supply depot where knight-sergeant Gavil is alongside knight Lucia who still mourning the loss of Clarke. Asuka looks around and spots a suit of T51b power armor nearby. Asuka opens the hatch on the chest's back and puts it on then slips her leg into into the leg armor on the left and the right then the arms next. She puts on the helmet and grabs a minigun nearby and ammo backpack. Asuka goes upstairs to Shinji and Taisuke.

"Ready!" She informed.

"Jeez sis, can't you put on some T60? These suits are more powerful than the normal ones at DC and could withstand a freaking minigun barrage." Taisuke boasted since he takes great pride in the T60.

"Oh shut up you meatheaded drunk." Asuka spat back. The three walk towards the vertibird while Brotherhood initiates fire their laser rifles at the targets in front of them. Behind the targets is a vertibird armed with a minigun. On the bridge is Brotherhood forces making a blockade and making a way for the tanks to come in. Shinji is the first to get on the vertibird with Taisuke being second and Asuka last. The vertibird rises as Asuka gets in the minigun on the left and Taisuke on the right.

"There's a rocket launcher near the storage." The pilot informed prompting Shinji get up from his seat and open it to reveal a quad barreled rocket launcher. Shinji picks up the rocket launcher. The three spot the Brotherhood soldiers moving forward on the bridge as other vertibirds circling the fort and open fire at the raiders, this breaks the raider's concentration alongside the gunners causing them to become overwhelmed.

"Look at those degenerates panic! Ad Victorium!" The pilot cheered. There isn't much shooting really, just watching the whole thing go. The Brotherhood is efficient and quick, at least the three don't need to waste ammo on a couple of raiders and gunners. The vertibird lands with Brotherhood forces on the square of fort strong. Shinji gets out first to see the carnage. A raider slowly crawls back but a Brotherhood knight finishes him off.

"Ad Victorium." He saluted. The tanks provides a makeshift barrier as it opens fire at the retreating raiders and gunners who enter the fort. Shinji turns to Asuka looking around. She looks rather shocked...

"Your thoughts?" Shinji asks.

"Jeez, I always knew the Brotherhood was tough but not this tough. Though I guess this is the equivalent to shooting a rocket launcher at a person, it was made to destroy vehicles but someone ended up using it on people. But I did hear they suffered heavy losses in the second battle of New Vegas." Asuka replied. Taisuke whistles at the destruction.

"The Brotherhood means business but this is like practice to them for fighting the Institute. These raiders and psycho mercenaries are like playground bullies and the Brotherhood is the adult but the Institute comes in as the asshole adult that defends the bullies." Taisuke commented and loads a fusion core into his focused laser gatling gun. The Brotherhood soldiers lead the way.

"Hate to this but its good to get some extra help." Asuka said.

"This isn't a battle, this is a massacre." Taisuke added. Shinji follows the Brotherhood soldiers who head up to the hill. They stack up against the door as the knight upfront kicks it open...only for a barrage of minigun fire to hit him. The dead knight falls on the ground much to Shinji shock.

"I got this!" Asuka informed. She pulls out a nuka grenade she got from a Children of Atom member and throws it into the fort. The explosive goes off killing a majority of raiders inside it. All of the Brotherhood soldiers enter inside the fort, the team on the left goes to the left hallway and the team on the right goes on the right. Fort Strong used to be a super mutant hideout but after the Minutemen cleared the place at the cost of, ironically named, super mutant ally Strong. Asuka follows the Brotherhood team to the left with Shinji following.

They can see the messhall down the hall, it looks empty...a raider peers out of cover and opens fire at the Brotherhood team with his assault rifle. The bullets ping of Asuka's armor prompting her to open fire at the raider with her minigun thus knocking him down. A group of gunners throw a grenade at the team with Shinji in front of it. Asuka notices this and she pushes Shinji out of the way. Shinji tries to push the unconscious armored Asuka off of him but the power armor is too heavy, the Brotherhood team are taking cover at the moment as the raiders push them back. They seem not to know that he's not dead which gives Shinji an advantage. He loads his handgun and shoots the first raider in the head with his companions disregarding it as a shot coming from the Brotherhood team. Shinji tries to to move himself a little to get a clear shot at the raider upfront and peers over Asuka's unconscious body that's pinning him down, he shoots the raider in the chest thus reducing the raider team to just two people.

Asuka regains consciousness and gets off of Shinji. Shinji weakly gets up and staggers against the wall beside him as the Brotherhood team passes by them. Taisuke walks in and administers a stimpack into Shinji's arm which heals him quickly causing Shinji to get off the wall.

"Can you walk properly? I wouldn't be surprised you can't since you had the equivalent of the weight of a truck on you." Taisuke asks.

"I'll be fine." Shinji walks ahead. The Brotherhood has already cleared the upper level of fort strong with what remains of the gunner and raider teams surrendering. The only ones that remain are at the bottom as the team looks for the key to the basement downstairs. A Brotherhood knight checks on the dead high ranking raiders but finds nothing.

"Check the desks or file cabinets for the fort strong key." They look around the cabinets but find nothing in the process. Shinji joins in the search as well alongside Asuka and Taisuke.

"Hey Shinji, while your at it, check the general's room. They always keep stuff like there." Taisuke informed and finds what appears to be a mini-nuke causing him to gasp in excitement but only to find out that its just a model and not the real thing. He sighs and tosses it backwards which hits paladin Vargas in the head.

"Hey, watch it! I almost thought that was a real mini-nuke!" Vargas yelled behind his power armor. Shinji enters the general's room and looks around. There's a display of a mini-nuke in the destroyed display case and also a trifold American flag on the shelf on the left. There's a terminal on the desk too. Shinji opens the desk to reveal a key. He picks it up wondering if this is the key so he goes outside.

"Is this the one?" Shinji asks as Taisuke and Asuka peer out of the rooms they are in.

"Yep! Just insert it into that elevator, we'll let you guys get some action while we stay up here." Vargas informed knowing that Shinji is with the two most dangerous people who roamed the wasteland The three spot the elevator as Shinji inserts the key to the elevator causing it to open as he enters in it alongside his friends. The elevator goes down and opens to reveal a room containing fatman shells and other mini-nukes much to Shinji's shock. This shouldn't be in the hands of raiders...

Taisuke whistles at the sight and looks around if there is any mini-nukes which there is on the shelf. Its ten mini-nukes which means unlimited boom for him since he has a collection of mini-nukes for his fatman back home. Taisuke tries to take all of them but Asuka gets in the way.

"We'll split them." Asuka suggested.

"Oh come on sis! You must have a butt load of nukes, let the courier gets some more bang for his buck. These things are freakin rare in the Commonwealth ya'know." Taisuke replied.

"Too much of everything is a bad thing you idiot, try sharing instead of being a scumbag." Asuka replied and takes five mini-nukes with Taisuke rolling his eyes underneath his power armor helmet and takes five. He notices that the fusion core battery is running out so he needs to save some power and gets out of his power armor knowing that he forgot to bring more fusion cores.

"Crap." He hissed. Taisuke leads the group into the area where they are keeping the prototype vertibird thermal mods. The lights open to reveal a railing on the top and a generator in the center. A small group of raiders and gunners come out of their cover. Their leader is wearing a familiar set of shades...and beret. Taisuke knows who it belongs to and he'll be dammed to let some idiot dishonor that memory.

"You've got to be fucking kidding..." Taisuke growled.

"Oh we aren't! The names Oscar and you guys, are my hostages. Here's the deal-"

"Where did you those from? The shades and beret." The courier asks with silent anger.

"Really? I'm taking you guys hostage to get the Brotherhood of steel off of my ass and all you ask where did I get this NCR beret and shades from?" Oscar replied with a grin.

"I SAID WHERE DID YOU GET THAT!" Taisuke roared. That beret belongs to Craig Boone, hero, husband, and loving father.

"Off some dead sniper guy from the Mojave. Want it back?" Oscar taunted.

"Yeah and since I know how you raiders work, I bet these guys are your best men and I have to take them out as a challenge. So bring'em on!" Taisuke yelled. Shinji tries to assist but Asuka backs him away.

"I like your style courier. Get'em boys!" Oscar ordered. The first raider known as Urb walks up to Taisuke and aims his pipe submachine gun at him but Taisuke hits the rifle making him aim to the side causing Taisuke to go around him and grab him in the chokehold. Taisuke pulls out his ranger Sequoia revolver and shoots the first raider in front of him and the second in the head while a gunner takes cover behind a generator prompting Taisuke to shoot him in the foot which knocks him down. Taisuke lets go of the raider he has on a chokehold and throws him on the ground. The raider turns around but is shot in the head. The injured gunner nearby gets up but Taisuke shoots him in the throat next. Oscar's legs are quaking right now, this is the courier and he's no joke. The boy who cheated death.

Oscar slowly backs away from Taisuke and tries to make a break for it but Taisuke shoots him in the leg. The raider covers his injured leg and groans in pain as Taisuke picks up a double barreled shotgun from a dead raider nearby and shoots Oscar in the left arm and the right causing him to scream in agony. Taisuke takes the beret from the screaming raider and shades too. Asuka simply puts the raider out of his misery by shooting him in the face. Asuka always knew Taisuke was aggressive but not this aggressive. Taisuke walks away to get back to his power armor but Asuka grabs him by the shoulder and looks at him. Its hard to believe that Taisuke was born in the same vault as she was, he acts like a regular wastelander...but she sees a boy who clearly is suffering. Taisuke simply shrugs Asuka off and walks away as she thinks about the family she has left...

Her thoughts are interrupted by Shinji who throws up on the trash can nearby. Shinji at this point, has had enough, enough of death and destruction, of the madness that is the Commonwealth. Asuka places her hand on Shinji's back.

"I can't take it anymore, I can't take it anymore, I can't take it anymore..." He muttered. The Brotherhodo team enters the room as Asuka simply escorts Shinji out of the room towards the elevator.

* * *

Somewhere in the glowing sea, several power armored figures scout the place. They are looking for Brian Virgil, their power armor is almost unique thought, its the XO-1 power armor and its grey. Their lenses are colored yellow and are armed with miniguns. On the dome-like shoulder pad of the armor is a US flag but different though...its an E surrounded by stars.


	11. Personal quest: Whisky Rose

A flash of light appears in the old General Atomics gallaria. The team consists of a large group of gen-1 synths and coursers armed with laser weapons, the Institute laser pistol is always mistaken for a toy by children at times due to its appearance. The team is also accompanied by synth sentinels and the new inquisitor type synths who are called in to deal with high level threat. The robots who used to run the place have been destroyed by Nora after her earlier visit with the place. The place was an attempt to have robots run a park but it ended horribly and the park was shut down but that's now what the team isn't here for. There have been reports of synth scout teams and coursers ambushed by an unknown assailant. The leader signals the team to separate.

The second row goes to the bowling alley, third goes to the restaurant, and and fourth goes into the gym area. The synth courser who is armed with an Institute sniper rifle goes in first into the gym. Its desolate, old equipment lying around with a dead Mr. Gutsy on the boxing ring. Destroyed by Nora obviously.

"No target." A gen-1 informed and continued looking for the assailant. As they continue flashing there lights, the dead gen-1 synths are present on the ground. All destroyed by the assailant. Shotgun blasts to the face and whisky bottles spread around the place as if this was some kind of shooting gallery. The leader kneels and looks at the shots inflicted on them right before checking their head to see the data and the possible assailant. Nothing. All of their chips have been ripped off and destroyed as the team looks at them. He gets up...and hears shots coming from outside causing the team to head out.

A group of synths are shooting at something in the restaurant as one of them chucks a grenade at the attacker which blows up. They go inside to check on the attackers status...only for a mini-nuke inside it to go off. The second row of synths head out of the bowling alley but are quickly gunned down by an invisible threat armed with what appears to be a light machine gun. The courser leader aims his Institute laser rifle knowing the target is in front of him...only to feel that something grabs the barrel of his gun then raises it to hit him in the head right before the rest of his team can react. They open fire as the assailant turns out that she's using a stealth boy.

The woman is wearing a brown jacket with a pinkish long sleeve shirt underneath and has a necklace. She is wearing caravaner pants too and a straw hat. She opens fire at the synth team and guns them all down right before switching to her shotgun, a caravaner shotgun.

"Alright, I've been waiting for you to arrive. Knew the more I'd kill more clankers you'd come." She said and took a sip of whisky and aimed her shotgun at the knocked down courser on the ground.

"Subject E417..." The courser said before he shot in the leg. She knows how to stop a courser from moving, always aim for the leg with a high damage weapon.

"Rose of Sharon Cassidy or Cass for short. Now, tell me where the fuck is the Institute and how do I get there." Cass threatened. The courser gives a sigh.

"The Institute has no time in fighting a failed test subject-" She pulls the trigger on his shoulder next right before reloading. The same answer over and over. She's tired of this. She didn't come out here into the Commonwealth to keep hearing the same response from damn coursers. She does what everyone does when they've been augmented and lost everything, she beats a person to death with a shotgun right before leaving. No doubt the minutemen will hear about her exploits. She doesn't care at all. This isn't her first time too when it came to wrecking place just to find a courser. She'll tear up apart the Commonwealth if she has too. Either way, the Institute is going to burn.

* * *

Prydwen.

"What do you mean we'll have to wait for it to be finished?" Taisuke asks impatiently. When they got back to the Prydwen, he already had butterflies in his stomach that they can find the Institute and blow it up again but Quinlan explained that the vertibirds need some time installing thermal vision into the veritibird. Shinji is nearby still shakened by Taisuke's outburst of extreme violence on Oscar. Asuka is leaning against the wall nearby.

"Are still drunk from the whisky or Bourbov's special? I said it a couple of times, it will have to take a moment or days to install. I said it five times in a row right now." Quinlan sighed.

"We don't have a day scribe!" Taisuke spat back and drank some bourbon nearby. Quinlan rolls his eyes, he was expecting a legendary hero of the Mojave who saved everyone from the Legion.

"Oh yes, how about we rush the development and crash in the glowing sea? Patience courier, your time will come." He replied and went back to work.

"Then we'll use Liberty Prime then!" Taisuke suggested.

"As memory serves, Prime has been knocked out by an EMP from the battle of Vegas. We'll have to find a new power source. Now, I have work to go back to." Quinlan goes back to his work as Taisuke drank some bourbon and grumbles away about going back to Diamond city. Asuka rolls her eyes with Shinji confused.

"Asuka...what's Liberty Prime?" Shinji asks. The very mention of that name to Asuka makes her feel a little giddy inside when she last saw him. Wrecking the Enclave with one powerful Mk-28 mini-nuke.

"Liberty Prime was an experimental robot desgined to combat the Chineseif they ever takeover Anchorage, Alaska. I miss that thing in action, should've seen it when it was unleashed on the Enclave during my years in DC." Asuka replied and whistled at the schematics for Liberty Prime on the table. It looks like Prime will be equipped with a force field now to prevent orbital strikes from taking him down.

"Anyway, Shinji, you will have to wait awhile for the modifications to install into the vertibirds." Quinlan explained.

"So...is there anything to do here on the Prydwen?" Shinji asks.

"Nothing really, perhaps you should consult Nora for this. After all, there are problems that the Brotherhood is too busy to handle. Hence why we had the Minutemen do the work while we work on said problems." The proctor replied.

"We can make extra caps when you think about it...depends on the job." Asuka added as Shinji nods. The two walk out of the room and head downstairs to the vertibird deck. Taisuke is already gone with Mari staring out at the view of the Commonwealth. She seems rather withdrawn and looks focused while looking at the view of what remains of CIT. They head out to the vertibirid deck with Asuka entering first and Shinji second.

"Where to?" The pilot asks.

"Diamond City, just land us in front of the entrance." Asuka ordered. The pilot nods and takes off while Shinji looks out into the Commonwealth. He remembered entering the city, how there was life. Boston was one of the prospering cities even when they were at end-times really and Shinji was glad too. It almost looks beautiful...yet haunting. Asuka looks too, reminds her of the Pitt, a disgusting cesspool of madness led by that traitor, Ashur who she helped. Though the Commonwealth wasn't filled with slavers in anyway. She doesn't know if she can declare the Commonwealth her home. Her brother declared it but can she? She maybe here in the Commonwealth but at the same time, her heart belongs to vault 101 and the Capitol Wasteland. Shinji notices her rather saddened look on her face.

"Asuka? Are you alright?" Shinji asks her causing Asuka to turn to him.

"Its nothing. I'm just getting a sense of deja-vu, that's all...it reminds of me of the Pitt really. Used to be called Pittsburgh now its a city filled with filth and madness or was a city." Asuka replied. Shinji remembered he had relatives in Pittsburgh, its not surprising really that everything has turned to crap when the bombs fell.

"Must've looked horrible when the bombs fell." Shinji commented.

"Funny part is that the bombs didn't hit the place, it became a raider town then a slave city. Don't know if the leader lived up to his promise of freeing them though." Asuka answered. She has moments of remembering events during her early years, call it her twilight hours. She always felt that she was a forgotten legend, heck, everyone says in the Capitol Wasteland says that she's dead. Shinji isn't surprised at all, the world has gone insane.

"So what should we do to wait it off?" Shinji asks.

"I don't know, I heard Nora and Preston have jobs for you if you want to join. If you need me, I'll be where I'll always be, Diamond city. Probably helping out Haylen." Asuka answered. The ride to Diamond city is rather pleasant. Two strangers trying to find the truth. It wasn't long before the vertibird landed in front of the stadium turned city. Guards are standing behind the beanbags as brotherhood soldiers are on the roofs armed with laser sniper rifles. Asuka and Shinji get off of the aircraft.

"Show offs." A guard muttered in jealously at the vertibird as it takes off. The two enter the city as Asuka separates from Shinji, he spots Nora talking to a brotherhood scribe. The scribe nods her head at Nora and leaves. To Nora, she couldn't believe it, Brotherhood, Railroad, and Minutemen working together finally to take down the Institute. Piper is already having a field day with this. Shinji walks towards Nora causing her to turn to him.

"Excuse me. Ms. Morgan, do you have any work for me? I kind of need some money and wait for the brotherhood to finish installing the special component needed for the vertibird to fly in the glowing sea." Shinji requested. Nora looks at her pip-boy and back at Shinji.

"Oh yes, I have a settlement that needs your help. I'll mark it on your map. Its Jen Hills." Nora replied. Shinji feels guilty for some reason, maybe its because Nate is gone? Or that he didn't go to Nora?

"Um...Ms. Morgan, I have to something to say." Shinji spoke softly.

"Yes?"

"I...I'm very sorry about Nate. He was my father's friend after all, I wish was there." Shinji apologized. Nora sighed and smiled. Shinji was always meek and kind, always putting the blame on himself. Nora places her hand on Shinji's shoulders.

"Hey, it isn't your fault. None of this is. I just want you to know that, okay?" Nora replied.

"...Okay."

"Now, since the roads are secure, its pretty safe to go to Jen Hills. You have enough experience dealing with the harshness of the wasteland, you can handle yourself." The woman smiled as Shinji smiled back and nodded. He walks away gaining confidence, ready to tackle the world. Nora's warm smile turns into a worried look on her face. What will Yui think of her? She just let her son do whatever he wants. There's a part of her that just wants Shinji to stop and another part of her that wants him to continue. She's in between.

* * *

Jen Hills.

Shinji arrives in Jen Hills, the place is similar to Sanctuary Hills but at the same time kind of different in terms of houses. All around him are settlers doing there typical business and minutemen guarding the place. Sentry turrets are placed in front of the lawns with guard posts nearby. There are melons planted in front of the ruined houses with water pumps next to them. Brahmin are seen eating from the feeder, Shinji feels uncomfortable seeing a two headed cow. There's a power armor station nearby with a T60 power armor parked on it. Its colored steel blue with the Minutemen symbol on its chest, its a rifle with a lightning bolt crossed on it. To Shinji, its nice to see people trying to rebuild civilization. Start out small and make something of it. Now its time to help out.

He looks around for Misato since he remembered he told her where to make a settlement. She's rather good looking for someone who has experience taking down raiders for possibly years. There's something about her that feels nurturing almost. Reminds him of his mother in a way. Shinji decides to sit on a bench nearby. He still is deep in his thoughts. This whole situation feels surreal in every way. The end of the world happens and he sees the atrocities and the fate of mankind, next he's sitting in a settlement as a militant yet benevolent organization. A nuka-cola bottle appears next to him held by a gloved hand causing him to turn to see Misato with it.

"Heard you were coming." Misato smiled as Shinji takes the nuka cola bottle and drinks it. The radiation still worried him but Asuka has radaway back home so he'll take a sip of that when he's done. The radiation in the drink makes him choke up a little and its strong as heck too. The last time he drank nuka-cola, it didn't taste like this at all. It still has its flavor but the radiation makes it worse at the same time.

"You seem not to like it." She chuckled.

"I like it but...the radiation makes it taste bad." Shinji replied and places the soda next to him. He gets up and turns to Misato, she still has typical outfit but at the same time, missing her hat. Misato smiles, she remembered how she was like him, a vault dweller minus the part being cryogenically frozen for 210 years. She pulls out a pack of radaway and gives it to Shinji who takes it and takes a sip. The medicine has a bitter-sweet taste to it but at least he won't get any radiation sickness.

"Nora told me to help you here, is there anything you need?" He asks. Misato remembered that Nora called in to tell her that Shinji was coming via HAM radio installed in old house nearby. Jen Hills so far is the perfect settlement to settle down in. The houses untouched by the war except the last one who's roof was blown away but it can be fixed regardless. Jen Hills another neighborhood of tomorrow next to Sanctuary Hills hence why.

"Well, I have something for you but it'll be different. Grab that hoe nearby." She ordered. Shinji grabs the hoe leaning against the chair and stands up.

"Follow me." Misato walks towards Shinji's old house then stops and turns around to him.

"I want you to give these seeds some space, I'm trying to grow melons. Call it a little hobby of mine, growing plants here around Jen Hills." She explained. Shinji positions the hoe and begins hoarding the dirt towards him. Misato picks up a hose and waters the tato fruit nearby alongside the gourds. He could smell something in the dirt, life, proves nothing in this cruel world is dead after all really.

"Be careful, sometimes you'll end up disturbing a couple dormant radscorpians." The minuteman teased causing Shinji to jump up in fright.

"Relax! I'm just kidding!" Misato laughed and bends down to plan the seeds. She pushes the dirt over it and gently pats it right before using the hose on the seeds to let it grow. Misato gets up.

"You know, you remind me a lot like myself. A shy vault dweller trying to find his place in the world." She observed.

"You were...from a vault?" Shinji asks.

"Yep, you know, underneath his colonial duster of mine, is a vault suit. Good old vault 81." Misato whistled. She remembers fondly of the vault, the overseer, the safety in it. The only sane vault in the world really. 101 almost takes the spot. Almost.

"I guess that vault went to hell didn't it?" Shinji asks.

"No? Well, we had a mole rat infestation from what I've heard. But it ended when the Minutemen in hazmat suits entering the place thus wiping out the mole rats inside the extra parts of the vault. Its now a complete vault now since they cleared the place up.

"So, why did you leave that vault?" He asks again. Misato smiles and sighs and looks up into the sky.

"I was the first to get out of the vault when I was your age, curious about the outside world there. Got out via pip-boy when everyone's shifts ended and head out into the Commonwealth." She replied.

"But...why? Didn't you know back then that the world was dead?" Shinji asked again.

"People kept saying that to me-the world outside was full of rapists and murderers-but I didn't give up on it. The people in vault 81 gave up, dismissing anyone and anything as a raider or something else. But I wanted to believe that the world outside isn't like that at all...turns out they were right. Everywhere I saw was destruction and madness in the Commonwealth. Nothing worth saving for...that was until someone showed me that there is still good in the Commonwealth. The Minutemen. I went back to the vault and told stories of what I saw...the old overseer caught wind of my stories and reported me to his office. He simply said that I'm inspiring others to leave the vault...and exiled me. Gave me an armored vault suit and a rifle, that's it. Hoped I would die in the Commonwealth. He was wrong though, the nearest Minutemen patrol found me. Or what was left of them. They gave me a laser musket and found went around the Commonwealth. We were a small group but did a couple of daredevil attacks on raiders, gunners, you name it. It was then I met Nora, we retook the castle, the old Minutemen base and then we took down the Institute. Saw the explosion in CIT. I didn't give up. I proved the overseer wrong. Maybe one day you'll prove yourself wrong." Misato smiled. In a world filled with misery and uncertainty, it is a great comfort to know, in the end, there is a light in the darkness for Shinji. Shinji aims his eyes on the ground then back at Misato. There's hope in his eyes.

"Anyway-" Misato's pip-boy goes off causing her to look at it. Her eyes widen.

"Aw great, this again." She grimaced. The latest report.

"What happened?"

"The same report. Minutemen keep getting reports of synth patrols being destroyed with ease...and the locations of potential settlements end up getting destroyed. This is the fifth time already. Almost like these synths were lured in by someone or something. Same traps, mini-nukes mixed with frag mines, doors shut, synth components taken. That's it. Whoever this is, he or she is preventing the reconstruction of the Commonwealth, making it difficult for people to settle." Misato explained.

"Maybe I can help?" Shinji replied.

"Hm...maybe. The minutemen just dispatched Taisuke to the area, there's brotherhood vertibirds scouting the place too. If you want to help, the place is called the general atomics galleria. Run by Mr. Handy's and Gutsy's, well, was run by Mr. Handy's and Gutsy's after Nora went there. Heard it was shutdown due to an accident with the robots inside. Anyway, if you want to help out with Taisuke, then head on over to that brotherhood jeep there. The knight on it can drive you there." The woman informed. Shinji nods and heads towards the jeep where a brotherhood knight leans on it while smoking a cigarette.

"Excuse me, I need a ride to general atomics galleria." Shinji requested. The knight throws away his cigarrette.

"Okay then. Just keep an eye out for raider attacks, they maybe gone but they've scattered throughout the wilderness here." He advised and gets on the jeep right before starting it up with Shinji getting inside. The jeep begins to drive away.

* * *

General Atomics galleria.

 _Location discovered: General Atomics galleria._

The jeep stops in front of the place as minutemen patrols scout the area trying to salvage what they can alongside the brotherhood. Shinji gets off of the jeep and walks towards the entrance. The place is riddled with laser fire and explosion marks everywhere alongside destroyed gen-1 synths on the ground in rows so the brotherhood can do an autopsy on them. On the ground crouching and looking at the dead courser body is Nick Valentine and Taisuke.

"What could you make of this?" Nick asks. Taisuke recognizes the shots from somewhere but he can't point it out where, the shot is obviously from a shotgun but the shot looked like it was only two-burst.

"Shotgun blast to the head, rest of the synths were gunned down by a machine gun." Taisuke explained and looked around then got up with Nick.

"Well whoever did this was in a hurry. Just like every assault team. Destroyed in a rushed fashion. I get the feeling the mini-nuke trap does the rest while shocking and awing the targets. This is the work of a typical wastelander not a professional." Nick replied. Shinji internally shudders at Nick, he looks exactly like Kaworu except no hair at all and wears a hat. He turns to Shinji.

"Oh, Nora told me about you. The name's Nick Valentine and I see you've met my friend of mine from Washington, Kaworu Nagisa. If you say we're alike, don't try to compare it, Kaworu uses his fists and I use my brain." Nick said and smiled. His face suddenly turns pained and he rubs his head.

"You alright? You should really get that migraine checked out by the railroad." Taisuke observed. Nick turns to him.

"I'll do it later, as of now, I'm focusing on trying to find this bitch and give everyone a chance at finding a home!" Nick exclaimed, Taisuke's eyes widen. Nick rarely swears and gets angry for justified reasons.

"Nick...are you sure? I can do this myself. You don't seem right." The synth shakes his head and rubs his temples.

"Fine, fine." Nick replied and walks away with a brotherhood soldier escorting him. Taisuke turns to Shinji.

"These shotgun shells look familiar, I've seen them before but I can't point out where..." He informed Shinji. Taisuke continues to look around with Shinji doing the same. He enters the exploded diner where minutemen soldiers investigate. Shinji spots an ash pile on the ground and realizes it has some kind of shape on it which is strange. He could see an outline, a square one. Shinji crouches and touches the ashes and feels something solid. He grips his hand to reveal a chewed box-like object with buttons on top of it.

"Hey, I found something!" Shinji yelled to Taisuke as he goes to take a closer look. He gives him the object as Taisuke gets a closer look at it...

"Is that what I think it is? Its a stealth boy. This explains why the hunter-yes, that his/her nickname-could take out synth patrols real easily. Stealth. But telling how he/she took out the entire team, looks like it was rushed in someway. Also, the shotgun shells, I realized where they came from...from a caravan shotgun." Taisuke explained and gives the shell to Shinji.

"The attacker is a caravaner of some kind. Now all we need to know where he/she will strike next. Perhaps we should check the gym first." The two head towards the gym and enter it. Synths lay in rows as brotherhood piles them up. Still the same, shotgun blasts. There's a makeshift bed nearby but Shinji senses that there is something up with it.

"Great, no clues..." The courier sighed. Shinji crouches and notices that the bed is hiding something, a safe.

"Taisuke, take a look at this!" Shinji adivsed causing Taisuke to turn. The safe seems very hard to unlock as Taisuke pulls out his bobby pin, he has forty-seven of these things so he'll be here for a long time. Taisuke carefully turns the lock as he found the soft spot and if fully opens. Inside it is a couple of shotgun shells, an empty whisky bottle, and a map of the Commonwealth. Taisuke gives a look, there are marked off locations, same locations that were supposed to be potential settlements but got destroyed. One last location...its spectacle island.

"Oh shit...we found out where the hunter will strike. Spectacle island!" Taisuke concluded and signals Shinji to come with him as Taisuke pulls out his shotgun he got from Red Lucy, Dinner Bell. The two spot a brotherhood vertibird parked nearby since the brotherhood provides extra security to them as Taisuke is the first to get on board with Shinji coming in second.

* * *

Spectacle Island.

 _Location Discovered: Spectacle Island._

The vertibird is almost at the island. Taisuke looks outside and spots dead mirelurks and synths littered all over the place as if a battle happened. There's still visible laser fire coming from the gen-1 synths down below causing Taisuke to grab the minigun mounted on the aircraft and open fire at it with Shinji grabbing the assault rifle nearby and firing alongside Taisuke. The vertibird lands on the ground with Taisuke and Shinji getting out of it. Shinji looks up to see a synth courser got shot in the chest by a laser blast which sends him flying while another one is shot in the head. Caravan shotgun rounds are heard blasting which means the hunter is here.

"Please, I-I can't tell you where the Institute is! They'll kill me, I'll end up like Virgil!" A voice is heard causing Taisuke and Shinji to head up...Taisuke sees a familiar face from a past long forgotten. His eyes widen as the person turns to him in shock.

"C-Cass...?" Cass is holding an Institute scientist hostage and wielding an Institute laser rifle at him. Next to him are a bunch of Institute scientists lined up in a row, all dead and decapitated. Next to them are what appears to be soldiers who don't look like there Institute.

"T...Taisuke!?" The caravaner yelled. Shinji doesn't know what to do, Taisuke seems to know this person and they seem to care about each other but Shinji can't seem to pull the trigger on her.

"Wh...what's going on?" Taisuke asks her.

"You should know what's going: Payback! I'm trying to get info off this egghead but he's not telling me shit! Even if I kill his escorts, who are in fact, Enclave soldiers! Now tell me, where the fuck is the Institute and where the fuck did you get the soldiers from!?" Cass yelled at the scientist.

"Please, just listen to reason-"

"Listen to reason? Do you know what the Institute did to me? What you did to me? To the courier, Taisuke? Veronica? Mari? Ghost? Those innocent people in Freeside? Novac? Goodsprings? Vegas? Turning me into a cyborg like cereal killer aka Kellogg? Reasonable is what I am when I'm sober but when the whisky hits, you best pray it'll be quick. Now tell me. Where. Is. The. Institute. " Cass threatened.

"Shinji, let her do the work." Taisuke holsters his shotgun on his back. The scientist is close to wetting himself as Taisuke has a bit of a satisfied look on his face. Shinji can't bear this at all.

"Let him go!" Shinji yelled at Cass.

"Seriously? And I was starting to like you."

 _Taisuke disliked that._

"And why should I? This death-worshiping piece of filth did this to me! All of the Institute did this to me!" Cass replied. The Institute scientist is crying now and wetting his pants much to Cass's disgust.

"Not all of the Institute is bad." Shinji reasoned.

"Oh for the love of god-try something else! I gave up thinking not all of them are bad." She growled.

"If you do that, then you'll become no better than the Institute itself. You've went around the Commonwealth looking for them at the cost of potential homes for other people. Are you willing to destroy the entire Commonwealth for just the location? Aren't you tired of wandering around, killing anything that's Institute to gain there attention? Are you willing to take away homes just for this?" Shinji asks. Cass's hand on the weapon begins to shake and remembers something. Novac, she saw those damn synths and Institute scientists take away people to be put on vertibirds while being escorted by Enclave soldiers. Dear god Cass thought to herself, is she...has she really gotten that low?

"Al...Alright, I'm leaving him for the Brotherhood. But if he gets out, then I'm blowing his head off. Don't get sentimental about it." The scientist sighs and walks away but Taisuke quickly pulls out his shotgun and turns it sideways and swings it against the scientist's head. Taisuke and Cass look at each other...its been ten years...just two old friends reunited at last.

"...Hey." Taisuke with a weak but now confident smile. Cass smiles back at the courier she fought with.

"Hi..." The courier gives Cass a hug with Cass returning it with a generous smile. The hug is tight but they don't care, besides Veronica who disappeared suddenly alongside Ghost, they only had each other. When they thought they last one another, they became broken in there own way. Cass, a vengeful mad-woman hellbent on destroying the Institute even if that means if the Commonwealth burns and Taisuke, a forgotten hero who wants to forget who he was. The two let go and head towards the vertibird.

* * *

The third rail  


Taisuke and Cass laugh at there stories on what they've been doing for the past ten years they've been out wandering the wasteland. Cass went to DC and interrogated Dr. Zimmer there about his robot while Taisuke wandered the Mojave until he realized he crossed the border going to North America when Nora found him. Magnolia seems pretty content with Taisuke being happy as in normal not drunk off his ass and starting a bar-fight.

"So Strong was like, Nightkin cowards! Super mutants better and braver! And I was like, super mutants end up running away from people who are better than them and he just went silent!" Taisuke laughed with her.

"And thought they gotten smarter, the mutants in Jacobstown would be disappointed!" Cass laughed and snorted. Little does she know, the courier's hand is on hers. If she found out, she wouldn't care at all really. Been a long time since she saw this tough son of a bitch. Taisuke adjusts his voice.

"Anyway its nice to meet you again. Haven't seen you since Vegas burnt up, only familiar face I've been seeing is Asuka aka Mother Goose or the Lone Wanderer." Taisuke said.

"Of course, now you're on her level now next to the Vault dweller and the Chosen one." Cass replied.

"Was, not anymore...maybe one day." Taisuke sneered and drank.

"And its good to see you again too." Cass smirked and drank some whisky. Little do they know, someone is watching, a hooded girl with a power fist smiling.

* * *

Diamond city.

Shinji gets up on his bunk with Asuka sleeping on the bottom and thinks about the day. Misato gave him one thing, its hope. This world still has light after all. Shinji dozes off to sleep.

* * *

Next morning.

Shinji opens the door of his house to reveal Cass and Taisuke leaning against the door. Beside them is a T60b power armor with the frame inside.

"Say Shinji, I'd like to thank you. Kinda got me thinking about who I am. Guess I went crazy there. But that's what you get when you've been wandering around with nothing but anger in your veins. So as a little reward, Taisuke and I got this power armor for you. Now won't be the odd one out in Asuka's crew." Cass presented. It looks heavy but it'll suffice.

"T-Thank you. I really don't need it." Shinji replied.

"Oh come on! You'll be going to the glowing sea, do you want to become a ghoul?" Cass countered. Shinji looks at the power armor and has an accepting smile.

"Okay, fine." Shinji sighed and pulls out a fusion core.


	12. Notice

To scashm082

Look, the life is strange story will be updated when its updated. This isn't the place to keep spamming me to work on the life is strange/borderlands fic.


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